tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-62627069740374017312018-08-01T01:59:21.393-07:00Small MovesMusings and thought scribbles on the future of entertainment from a former Pixar TD and co-founder of Oculus Story Studio @maxwellplanck Maxwell Plancknoreply@blogger.comBlogger45125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6262706974037401731.post-18711975372584934592018-02-07T10:47:00.001-08:002018-02-14T09:20:36.917-08:004 Big Ideas from the 2018 Immersive Design Summit<div style="font-family: gotham, helvetica, arial, sans-serif;">Over the last 18 years, immersive theater has grown in popularity in London, New York, San Francisco, and Los Angeles. Unfortunately, it hasn't evolved much beyond those city-centers. I found immersive theater in 2015. I began to see VR as an evolution of a how an audience visits a narrative, rather than an evolution of film. We started applying this learning to our work at <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oculus_Story_Studio" target="_blank">Oculus Story Studio</a>. We hired a&nbsp;well known immersive theater troupe to help us crack story on "<a href="https://www.theverge.com/2018/1/19/16908448/wolves-in-the-walls-vr-gaiman-mckean-fable-sundance-2018" target="_blank">Wolves in the Walls</a>".</div><div style="font-family: &quot;helvetica neue&quot;, arial, sans;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: &quot;helvetica neue&quot;, arial, sans;">As those of us in VR discovered the immersive arts, the immersive arts have discovered us, seeing this new technology is a way to scale beyond their bubble.<br /><br />On January 6th, I attended an intimate <a href="http://immersivedesignsummit.com/" target="_blank">Immersive Design Summit</a>. I met incredibly interesting people working in immersive theater, experience design, escape rooms, and virtual reality, including the creators of <a href="https://mckittrickhotel.com/sleep-no-more/" target="_blank">Sleep No More</a>, Imagineers from Disneyland, the creative producer from <a href="https://www.ilm.com/ilmxlab/" target="_blank">ILMxLab</a>, the&nbsp;CCO from <a href="https://www.thevoid.com/dimensions/starwars/secretsoftheempire/" target="_blank">The Void</a>, and the CEO of <a href="https://meowwolf.com/" target="_blank">Meow Wolf</a>. We came together to discuss the problems and solutions shared across our immersive spaces. <br /><br /><div align="center"><iframe allow="autoplay; encrypted-media" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/xbrIJdu6Gn0" width="560"></iframe></div><br /></div><div style="font-family: &quot;helvetica neue&quot;, arial, sans;">During the full day event, we shared our favorite stories from when we fell in love with the immersive arts. Everyone's story shared a common theme: they loved improvised, serendipitous, impossible-to-repeat moments. Moments like when a bag of feathers were dropped on a scene and one of them fell perfectly into an actor's spotlit hand, or when an actor deftly snatched a spoon accidentally thrown by an over-excited audience member and then twirled it around in character. There's something magical about feeling a part of a fantastic memory and not simply watching a fantastic story.</div><div style="font-family: &quot;helvetica neue&quot;, arial, sans;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: &quot;helvetica neue&quot;, arial, sans;">We all got excited thinking of VR as a new venue but also as a new canvas. VR has a unique set of constraints for what's possible and what's costly. New constraints ignite new ideas. </div><div style="font-family: &quot;helvetica neue&quot;, arial, sans;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: &quot;helvetica neue&quot;, arial, sans;">The challenge for uniting VR and the immersive arts is that the experts at building real immersive environments don't have the technical expertise to create virtual environments. Considering I have the latter skillset and that I was surrounded by those who have done so well in the former, I was inspired to see the synapses starting to connect.<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><i>"the hierarchy of needs"</i></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div></div><div style="font-family: &quot;helvetica neue&quot;, arial, sans;"><span id="goog_945036449"></span></div><div style="font-family: &quot;helvetica neue&quot;, arial, sans;">During the opening keynote, the creative director at Disney Imagineering, threw up a slide of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maslow%27s_hierarchy_of_needs" target="_blank">Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs</a> as if she was referring to common knowledge we all should have learned back in Immersion 101. I've seen the pyramid before in leadership books, but not in the context of how you think about your visiting audience. Although this principle wasn't immediately evident to me, still a freshman level student of immersion, it makes sense that immersive creators must think deeply about human motivation. The theory is that all popular narrative media, think film and television, can at best feed our desire for feelings of love and belonging, while the immersive arts have the potential to feed our needs all the way to to the top.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-wj_MC0t0xnA/WnqN5_obxUI/AAAAAAAAAxs/dfjC5_k37WUF3zloshR8CJgLSgj21LIIwCLcBGAs/s1600/640px-MaslowsHierarchyOfNeeds.svg.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="453" data-original-width="640" height="282" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-wj_MC0t0xnA/WnqN5_obxUI/AAAAAAAAAxs/dfjC5_k37WUF3zloshR8CJgLSgj21LIIwCLcBGAs/s400/640px-MaslowsHierarchyOfNeeds.svg.png" width="400" /></a></div></div><div style="font-family: &quot;helvetica neue&quot;, arial, sans;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: &quot;helvetica neue&quot;, arial, sans;">This led me to an interesting thought about VR. The successful immersive creators must design an experience that feels safe before they can start tackling of higher levels of satisfaction. Popular narrative media like TV and film worry less about this problem as our mind can easily keep feelings of fear or threat behind the screen. With immersive theater, every audience member enters the experience knowing how to interact in it. It's natural to walk around, pick up objects, talk to each other- feel present in a physical space. With VR, it's not immediately intuitive how to navigate or interact with the experience, and when done wrong, it can actually make our audience feel sick. We need to get the fundamentals of interaction in VR right before we can climb the hierarchy of needs. As with immersive theater, if we make smart design decisions, we have the potential to create an experience that not only inspires but empowers the audience - this makes it a challenge worth solving.<br /><br /><blockquote class="tr_bq" style="text-align: center;"><i>"the alibi for participation"</i></blockquote><br /><div style="font-family: &quot;helvetica neue&quot;, arial, sans;">The keynote speaker ended with a phrase that stuck with me. She said that when&nbsp;they create a consistently excellent experience at Disneyland and build it with a delightful purpose, it gives the visitors an "<i>alibi for participation</i>." It's at that sweet spot of design where even the most cynical teenager will put away their fear of looking uncool and put on a pair of Mickey ears. Great immersive experiences give a clear sense of a master plan - a purpose for visiting- and a clear way of how to move towards a goal. The experience must then feel like every detail was designed to reinforce the boundary between the real and the immersed world. The audience can only then relax into that plan without the stress of feeling like they have to fill out a blank canvas.<br /><blockquote class="tr_bq" style="text-align: center;">"t<i>he Magic Circle</i>"&nbsp;&nbsp;</blockquote></div><div style="font-family: &quot;helvetica neue&quot;, arial, sans;">In games, there is a principle that has a similar meaning as the alibi for participation. It's called the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magic_circle_(virtual_worlds)" target="_blank">Magic Circle</a>. It symbolizes the threshold that a visitor crosses when they enter a new world of rules and expectations. The best game experiences design this cross-over with great care and a reverent consistency. At the start of the PS3 game Journey, you start in a stark desert with the only notable environmental feature being a mysterious glowing mountain top off in the distance. You quickly discover you can move around with a joystick, jump with the A button, and chirp with the B button. Those are the only tools you need to start your journey. Simple, intuitive, elegant.<br /><br /></div><div style="font-family: &quot;helvetica neue&quot;, arial, sans;">In order to create great VR, we need to do the same and more- feeling present comes with higher expectations. We need to establish the difference between how you interact in the real world with how you interact in the virtual world. For as much as I love VR mapping intuitive head and hand movement to feedback, we are still limited by the inability to capture the body or the full dexterity of the hand. There are yet to be haptics, and you are tethered to, <i>at best</i>, a 7' by 7' space. I believe the first step is to define how the experience is designed within these limitations; establishing the rules of locomotion, grabbing, throwing, pushing, button pressing, and talking.</div><div style="font-family: &quot;helvetica neue&quot;, arial, sans;"><br /><div style="font-family: &quot;helvetica neue&quot;, arial, sans;"><div style="text-align: center;"><i>"lack of constraints feeds indecision"</i></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div></div><div style="font-family: &quot;helvetica neue&quot;, arial, sans;"></div>After the keynote, I went to a series of inspiring sessions from escape room creators and immersive theater designers. Many of the creators worked within the confines of their limited budgets and made some really clever choices. One of my favorites stories was from the creators of "<a href="http://www.thenestshow.com/" target="_blank">The Nest</a>", an after-work immersive story project by Disney Imagineers. The experience is about exploring a deceased woman's estate to piece together the puzzle of her heart breaking life. It takes place in a small cramped space which amplifies the intimacy of the experience. The creators intentionally made that choice because it was cheaper to use a backyard shed the size of a storage unit.<br /><br /></div><div align="center"><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="360" mozallowfullscreen="" src="https://player.vimeo.com/video/237006104" webkitallowfullscreen="" width="640"></iframe></div><div style="font-family: &quot;helvetica neue&quot;, arial, sans;"><br />Constraints help guide and sometimes force decision making, providing a unique framework for invention. One of the challenges with VR is that we are less constrained in what we can build, making it easier for over-inflated ambition, and that feeds indecision. We have discovered that certain digital assets are cheaper to build than others. The key is creating great immersive environments, which are cheaper and easier than great immersive character acting. This, coupled with the human need for quality time, is one of the many reasons I'm excited about creating immersive environments in which your real-life friends can get together virtually to explore new adventures in ever-evolving environments.<br /><br />In one day, I took home 4 big ideas:<br /><ol><li><i>VR needs to start at the bottom of the hierarchy of needs;&nbsp;</i></li><li><i>the audience needs an alibi for participation;&nbsp;</i></li><li><i>defining the Magic Circle starts with the rules of interaction;&nbsp;</i></li><li><i>real world constraints make the immersive arts better, VR's constraints should do the same.&nbsp;</i></li></ol>It made it even more clear for me that VRs future will not evolve from books, TV or film. It will come from theme park makers, immersive theater producers, and escape room designers.</div></div>Maxwell Planckhttps://plus.google.com/103585983141096895655noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6262706974037401731.post-32367975788704588352017-12-28T21:02:00.003-08:002017-12-28T21:02:36.319-08:00stories I've experienced: The Invisible Hours (on Oculus Rift)Over the course of this past month, hour session by hour session, I've made my way through the VR story experience called <a href="http://www.tequilaworks.com/en/projects/the-invisible-hours/">"The Invisible Hours"</a> by Tequila Works.<br /><br /><div align="center"><iframe allow="encrypted-media" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" gesture="media" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/QrBGLd0zk6U" width="560"></iframe></div><br />The story takes place in the 1930s in an alternate universe in which Nikola Tesla has a sizable fortune, has faked his death, and escaped to a mysterious island to finish his more otherworldly work in peace. You soon find out Nikola has invited an intriguing assortment of guests to his sprawling estate for his own strange reasons. But you are never able to see Nikola as host, since you first encounter him dead on the main entrance foyer. The experience quickly unfolds into a classic who-dun-it in which you have to seek out the truth across 7 suspects' tangled story lines. The story you eventually unravel is written well enough, has intriguing characters, and a few eye opening twists and one jaw drop. But the story itself isn't what makes this a special entry in the early days of VR entertainment; what makes it special is an innovative new mechanic for how the visitor participates.<br /><br />Like many of the story based VR experiences attempted, you the visitor are treated as a ghost-in-the-room without any ability to influence or any reactions from the cast. What makes the experience engrossing, at times delightful, and downright important in the evolution of the medium is how it gives the visitor complete control over time and space. You can pause, rewind, fast forward <i>and </i>teleport yourself around as over a 90 minute period, you follow the dramatic suspects through out this island complex, which is filled with strange rooms, secret passages, scattered clues and backstory artifacts.<br /><br />What made Invisible Hours unique and a big step forward for the medium is that only in VR could I also control over time. I had a few giddy moments of appreciation when I would be following one suspect through some hallway or foyer and then cross paths with another suspect unwinding their own drama. I could then rewind and follow that person to find out what happened, only to be drawn into another crossing thread.<br /><br />Many times during the experience, I felt a familiar delight I've had during some of my favorite immersive theater experiences, knowing that whatever thread of the story I chose to follow, a larger tapestry was being woven around me. I chose where to go and who to follow and so my story was crafted by my decisions. But because of my non-linear time powers in VR, I didn't feel choice anxiety. I could follow all of the threads, forward and backward, and yet the path I traced over the pre-determined tapestry of tangled threads was still my own.<br /><br />The genius of it all is that having control over time and space is a perfect mechanic for a murder mystery. I was disappointed when I discovered I had no agency, but considering the goal was <i>finding out</i> who did it and <i>not stopping</i> who did it, I didn't need anything more than what I was given.<br /><br />There were 4 particularly exceptional things the creators pulled off that deserve gold stars.<br /><ul><li>Although it took me the entire first act to realize I had complete control over time and place (for the most part), I still walked the path intended by the creators. I love that there weren't many artificial boundaries to the mechanic, but the experience was so well designed that by the end, I looked down the road I chose and realized it was all a magic trick. And I loved the magicians for it.</li><li>The creators made smart visual design decisions so they didn't have to do that much fixup on the hours of motion capped acting by keeping farther away from the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncanny_valley" target="_blank">Uncanny Valley</a>. Although there still were awkward idle loops and comically wooden acting, considering the state of the art and the cost per minute limitations of VR, it was stand out work.</li><li>Being able to hear sounds and dialogue from other parts of the house was one of my favorite parts. That being said, the sound design was far from perfect: many times sound from another room didn't feel muffled by walls or properly reverbing around the wooden hallways. I am willing to give the sound designer a pass here considering the amount of content and the small budget for the experience. But what excited me is that just like in immersive theater, being able to hear noise from other rooms reminded me of the larger web of story around me.</li><li>Finally, the more spine tingling, eye popping moments I had were amplified when a chilling swell of music would accompany a dramatic reveal. Using music as a way to steer the audience's empathy is a story tellers tool that works as well in VR as it does in theater as it does in movies. The creators of The Invisible Hours used it to great effect.</li></ul>Maxwell Planckhttps://plus.google.com/103585983141096895655noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6262706974037401731.post-88943382014175818272017-12-03T16:32:00.006-08:002017-12-04T11:15:05.605-08:00stories I've experienced: Escape from the Jail - by Real Escape Games This past Saturday, on a day-of-whim, I decided to try out another escape room in San Francisco. This one is called <a href="https://realescapegame.com/jail_sf/" target="_blank">Escape from the Jail</a> by Real Escape Games, located off of Polk St. on the outskirts of Chinatown.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Vr9e0g_vTfc/WiSWn8ksqPI/AAAAAAAAAv8/l1mWh6t_9oQOJRcx-nF9v8IDuwhg06l8wCLcBGAs/s1600/escapefromjail.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="760" data-original-width="1542" height="313" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Vr9e0g_vTfc/WiSWn8ksqPI/AAAAAAAAAv8/l1mWh6t_9oQOJRcx-nF9v8IDuwhg06l8wCLcBGAs/s640/escapefromjail.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>It's one of the longest running escape rooms in the Bay Area, and one of the most challenging with a 10% success rate. I went with three friends and we were joined up by six other really smart, fun strangers. It proved to be as challenging as advertised, but we were still able to escape by a fraction of a second with an escape time of 59:59.<br /><br />What made the room challenging was that it added a twist in how you communicated. I'm not going to go into too much detail so those who read can enjoy for themselves, but be warned that I am going to talk a little bit about this unique mechanic which may spoil some of the fun of figuring out the premise.<br /><br /><div><div><div>The types of problems you solve in an escape room usually involve some permutation of 5 stages of tasking -- searching, inspecting, hypothesis generation, experimentation, and lots and lots of communicating. The most memorable moments are when the team feels like they're working together to make progress. My fondest memories are of those moments when it feels like we're all stuck and it's through spitball brainstorming that we generate more things to try out. I especially love the kind of puzzles where several escapees need to physically work together to solve a clue.<br /><br />In Escape from the Jail, the novelty and challenge of the room was that they added an obstacle in how you communicated. The party was broken into 2 jail cells where parts of each puzzle were split between the cells. There was a particular way you could collaborate with the other side, but you had to do so under the watch of a guard who would penalize you if she saw communication. So you had to wait for her to be turned away or distracted. It was the guard that added the real challenge because you couldn't easily test a hypothesis with the other side and get immediate feedback. As a result, the most challenging aspect of the entire experience was figuring out how and *when* to best communicate with the other side. It requires a really methodical approach and the ability to develop a shared language with your neighbor cell mates if you hope to escape. We didn't necessarily find great synchronicity and I in particular had a hard time matching the staggered flow that the communication required. We were often forgetful, confused, and frustrated. It's only because we had some really great puzzle solvers in both cells that we were able to salvage an escape in the last second.</div><div><br />After having a day to digest, I can appreciate that this communication constraint made it extremely challenging, but in the end, I didn't like it. It's really difficult to find clue solving flow, that feeling when you keep coming up with new ideas to throw at the puzzles and in those snowballing moments, gain a momentum that energizes and excites. But in this escape room, having to communicate at particular times and wait for response on a timeline you don't have control over meant I never felt like we were building up that really fun snowball.<br /><br />The part I liked the least was that when the team as a group solved a clue, we couldn't all share in the cooperative glow with something as simple as "way to go" or a high five. I realized that I prefer less challenge over more social interaction.</div><div><br /></div></div><div>What I learned from "Escape from the Jail" is that communicating and shared moments is a key part of social fun. Although they introduced a novel concept for me (this being my 6th escape room now), it mostly provided a great counter example of how social barriers can make for a kind of challenge that isn't as delightful as cooperative solving. That counter example inspired me to think on how VR could bring a team of puzzle solvers together who may be physically separated but still enjoy an amazing form of "unguarded" collaborative entertainment.</div></div>Maxwell Planckhttps://plus.google.com/103585983141096895655noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6262706974037401731.post-15373488905885003862017-10-22T22:02:00.002-07:002017-10-23T21:33:01.024-07:00stories I've experienced: The Three-Body Problem SeriesAs a VR content creator and believer, it's probably no surprise that I'm also a lover of science fiction novels, especially "hard" science fiction. Hard science fiction is just like regular science fiction, in that it explores a story under the influence of shifted, twisted, or evolved technological expectations, but with a scientific rigor that makes it feel believable. Some of my favorite books include Isaac Asimov's "<b><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foundation_series" target="_blank">Foundation</a></b>", Vernor Vinge's "<b><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Deepness_in_the_Sky" target="_blank">A Deepness in the Sky</a></b>" and Carl Sagan's "<b><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contact_(novel)" target="_blank">Contact</a></b>" (the movie is also one of my favorite science fiction stories).<br /><br />I just had the pleasure of finishing a great set of hard science fiction books written by Cixin Liu, once a nuclear engineer, now an acclaimed Chinese science fiction writer, and brilliantly translated by Ken Liu and Joel Martinsen. Called the "<a href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/bookseries/B00YUQP6AE/ref=sr_es_i_1_2_vsp_B00YUQP6AE&amp;qid=1508727815&amp;sr=1-2&amp;keywords=death's%20end%20cixin%20liu" target="_blank"><b>Three-Body Problem Series</b></a>" (also known as the <b>Remembrance of Earth's Past Series</b>), the series is three books starting with "<b>The Three-Body Problem</b>" and finishing with the "<b>The Dark Forest</b>", and "<b>Death's End</b>".<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/bookseries/B00YUQP6AE/ref=sr_es_i_1_2_vsp_B00YUQP6AE&amp;qid=1508727815&amp;sr=1-2&amp;keywords=death's%20end%20cixin%20liu" target="_blank"><img alt="three-body problem series" border="0" data-original-height="715" data-original-width="1440" height="316" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-lyAAXgGRnh0/We1zmwZNyTI/AAAAAAAAAuI/-zyfIo_ZMtQ92n2aPTQYl6LQb-kyorNigCLcBGAs/s640/3body.jpg" title="three-body problem series" width="640" /></a></div><br /><br />Cixin introduces a wild premise of how we might discover and communicate with antagonistic inter-stellar neighbors who are an alien race evolved so dramatically different from us because of the three sun system their home planet orbits in.<br /><br />The series explores interesting ideas around scientific discovery and the stagnation of it, a civilization in which members can hibernate for eras of time, wireless electricity, space cities with various designs for centrifugal based gravity, fusion drives, a mind bending invention called curvature propulsion, and a fascinating theory on how the speed of light may have once started out as near infinite but is variable and monotonically decreasing because of the advanced weapon warfare between civilizations in an overpopulated universe.<br /><br />In the first book, a secret group of trisolaran loyalists find and communicate with each other by using a form of virtual reality in which they can move around and even feel their environment by using a full body suit. The author doesn't go into too much detail how the devices would work and it's one of the softer bits of the fiction. In many ways, although Cixin's ideas were fresh and incredibly novel, I didn't feel like the story was written with an especially foreign perspective. That may be a credit to the translators, but what I do find interesting is how a book written by a Chinese author uses virtual reality almost as a foregone conclusion of what would be available to us in the very near future. This gives me hope for how virtual reality is seen in Asia, especially at a time where there seems to be more doubt in the states.<br /><br />On top of the fun thought experiment of how an alien culture may be so different if they evolve under the harsh conditions of a three sun system, the series proposes a fascinating and believable axiom of how interstellar species might treat each other if our galaxy was overcrowded. Cixin proposes that in an overcrowded space, there would be limited resources, and therefore a natural fear among all of its inhabitants that any competition for those resources is best treated as a threat. Earthlings soon find out (a little too late) that those species who discover life outside of their own systems are better off concealing themselves instead of reaching out. This "Dark Forest" theory is a great canvas in which Cixin explores one of the more interesting ideas in the series: what if we could prevent war with a neighboring alien race by threatening to reveal our neighborhood to the rest of a hostile galaxy and therefore keeping a fragile peace through mutually assured destruction?<br /><br />Another interesting idea that Cixin explores across the many years the story takes place is how gender expectations may change during times of survivalism and during times of comfort. Through out the book, as Earth advances and struggles against a strange and foreboding enemy, it goes through eras of extreme suffering and extreme luxury. During each extreme, Cixin proposes that when times are good, gender expectations trend to a feminized average, but when times are hard, gender expectations differentiate so that men are bearded, muscular and brutish and women are smaller, more fragile, and more maternal. It's an idea explored in other science fiction I've read, the most notable being "<b><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Forever_War" target="_blank">The Forever War</a></b>" by Joel Haldeman.<br /><br />With a lense towards our own culture, as technology continues to make life more comfortable, we may currently be seeing this trend towards a more feminized expectation for men (the term metrosexual comes to mind) and a more evolved expectation for women (as antiquated views on the domesticated wife are finally fading). I think our evolution out of antiquated stereotypical expectations for men and women is a good thing, but Cixin's is an especially thought provoking idea since it considers taking this trend to the extreme. I'm a big believer that great teams combine the perspectives of men and women with equality across all roles. But I also believe it's dangerous to say each individual must trend towards the thinking of the average. Homogenous thinking, even when balanced, leads to a lack of adaptability. There is a great benefit for men to be less brutish, but I worry that if this comes at the expense of our survivability, we should be cautious about losing our the classic gender expectations. Cixin doesn't try to make a case for what's best. He simply suggests that mankind is adaptable through out the extremes, and that we would most likely revert to our more primitive instincts and expectations when our day to day survival becomes the priority. I wonder how global warming may lead to a regression of our cultural evolution over the coming years.<br /><br />In any case, I highly recommend these books. Cixin introduces and explores a lot of clever ideas with compelling characters and delivers the kind of great science fiction that uses "what if?" to make you think deeply about our own civilization and perspectives.Maxwell Planckhttps://plus.google.com/103585983141096895655noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6262706974037401731.post-37536751671773600622017-09-27T08:00:00.002-07:002017-09-27T08:00:39.780-07:00stories I've experienced: Passengers (2016)On an 11 hour direct flight from San Francisco to Tokyo, I find myself with the kind of time where I can catch up on movies that I wouldn't even consider watching on a lazy Sunday. There's something liberating about being crammed in a big flying metal tube for a long period of time. It's like the time is already forfeit so I don't mind if it's wasted on a potentially bad movie.<br /><br />But I was pleasantly stunned to find an under appreciated gem in my selection, and unplanned by me, I watched it in the perfect setting.<br /><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-xYlMTfRuFoo/Wcu7WbAQi6I/AAAAAAAAAtA/3GnCl7BvSQ0_1a3nVdgrEnJOA00Nx5ogQCLcBGAs/s1600/7V7Ywv6Ribcl9dpe4g3XPf56cvL.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-xYlMTfRuFoo/Wcu7WbAQi6I/AAAAAAAAAtA/3GnCl7BvSQ0_1a3nVdgrEnJOA00Nx5ogQCLcBGAs/s400/7V7Ywv6Ribcl9dpe4g3XPf56cvL.jpg" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div>Passengers (2016) is a small ensemble sci fi romance drama starring Jennifer Lawrence and Chris Pratt that passed through the theaters unnoticed. Two space faring passengers find themselves woken up way too early on a ship traversing an expanse that takes 100 years to cross, dooming both of them to live out their remaining years as castaways on a cruise ship. Pratt's character is woken because of misfortune; Lawrence's character is woken because of desperation. They eventually fall in love, but in a way that feels earned and meaningful.<br /><br />I had very low expectations for this movie (it has a 30% on rotten tomatoes) and only had it on my list because I'm a sucker for space travel themes, high production value sci fi design, and Thomas Newman on score (there are some really sweet moments that remind me of Wall*e because of Newman's sound). But in the last act of the film, my jaw was dropping as much from the tense climax and heartfelt ending as from the complete under appreciation for this film. I cared for these characters. I felt for their decisions, their mistakes and their emotions. Their motivation, although simple, was believable and relatable in an unimaginable situation.<br /><br />These two passengers start out feeling like it was a life sentence to live out a luxurious yet isolated existence traveling across the stars without others around them to provide purpose or validation. But by the end, they find all they needed was each other. Romance wise, it's a touching sentiment, but it got me thinking how this space ship, with around 5000 migrating passengers was already on a mission of isolation from an overpopulated Earth. Everyone on that ship felt like 5000 was enough other people to bring them meaning when they reached their final destination.<br /><br />It's a very believable premise and it got me thinking how we all probably have a number in our mind of how big our community needs to be for us to feel fulfilled. In a time when technology allows us to create connections well beyond the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunbar%27s_number">Dunbar Number</a>, I worry that we all think our numbers are bigger than they need to be, which causes inflation to the point where each relationship is so devalued that even the sum of many leaves us wanting. I see this story as a suggestion that the lower our number is, the more satisfied and connected we may feel with the community we share. Having a number as low as 2 may be a bit overly romantic, but I do feel like a lower number is something worth aspiring towards.<br /><br />If the inevitable evolution of virtual reality is to create communities that mirror social value in real life, I wonder if it will be a technology that further dilutes our feeling of belonging or if it provides us a way to create communities sized to fit each one of us. As some one who is invested in seeing VR be a medium that makes us better people, I push and hope for the latter.</div>Maxwell Planckhttps://plus.google.com/103585983141096895655noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6262706974037401731.post-74487637530147416412017-09-19T22:29:00.002-07:002017-09-27T07:24:37.047-07:00Taking off the manager hat. For now.<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-TM18s3B2rT8/WcH3iVLALAI/AAAAAAAAAsc/ttlnKq8C1A8Lr2qgiHL5EOJ2qG8rJ5_rACLcBGAs/s1600/shutterstock_404160925.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="667" data-original-width="1000" height="213" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-TM18s3B2rT8/WcH3iVLALAI/AAAAAAAAAsc/ttlnKq8C1A8Lr2qgiHL5EOJ2qG8rJ5_rACLcBGAs/s320/shutterstock_404160925.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div>Over the past 7 years, I've been a manager and supervisor in various roles, first at Pixar and then from the ground floor at Oculus Story Studio. When I started down this path, I had an advantage. I approached managing as a challenge altogether different from the challenges I had overcome as a team member. For me, I wanted to know if I even had the skills to be a professional leader, and I knew that focusing on developing these skills meant growing in areas that were new to me.<br /><br />The classic and natural mistake most new managers make is thinking that this transition is about scaling their influence with the skills they already possess. The fact is that as a leader, I needed to start at the beginning <b>again</b>. I needed to learn how to make sure my team is the strongest version of themselves. That usually means I don't get to do exactly what I want, but what my team needs. Being humble about this restart made me more receptive to the many hard challenges I've faced.<br /><br />What makes management fun, and challenging, is the diversity of problems I've had to solve and the creativity required to solve them. What makes management hard is that I rarely get into flow for myself. I've had to play the role of the champion defending against forces from outside the walls. I've to be an advisor who can find inventive ways to unblock. I've had to be the parent who dishes out tough love. And I've switched between these roles many times in a day. I've come to find that as a manager, I've often needed to fall on the grenade of context switching so the team finds their flow.<br /><br />I enjoy managing and have found that it to be incredibly fulfilling. But not wholly satisfying. What I've been missing is that feeling of making something with my hands, pointing at it and saying "I made this thing." Instead, I've pointed at my team and been sustained by pride. Pride goes a long way, and I've been blessed with great teams who filled my cup, but in the end, I realized I got into VR because I wanted to be on the ground floor of building a new medium.<br /><br />With recent events in my career, I've been given an opportunity to take a step back from managing and start building as a creative engineer.<br /><br />It hasn't been an easy choice. It's understandable to feel like once you become a manager, you're stuck on that track. After having played the role of champion, advisor, and father, you earn a kind of respect and appreciation that soaks into your identity, and the lack of it makes you feel less than.<br /><br />But this is also where that initial mindset helps me again. Because I approached managing as an altogether different skillset, I can recognize it as a hat I chose to put on. Now, it's a hat I can choose to take off.<br /><br />My skills and experience as a manager will still be there for the day that I want to return to it, but for now, I want to roll up my sleeves and make some amazing VR.<br /><br /><br />Maxwell Planckhttps://plus.google.com/103585983141096895655noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6262706974037401731.post-48801024496758708952017-09-04T22:33:00.001-07:002017-09-04T22:35:12.774-07:00stories I've experienced: The Asylum Escape RoomI love puzzles. I love immersion. And I love a team effort. So this labor day weekend, I tried out one of the newest escape rooms by <a href="http://clockwiseescape.com/asylum/">Clockwise Escape Rooms called "The Asylum"</a>. The experience takes place in a Nixon era mental ward where you have to solve your escape before the staff comes back from their one hour meeting. The premise was simple but evocative, and it was beautifully executed with smart era consistent set design. We even got to wear patient gowns to complete the immersion.<br /><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-qO0Z20h1LnI/Wa4yB2StmLI/AAAAAAAAArw/Sw5Z5LR19Dcs41MpIvR93bV05h-cn1ClwCLcBGAs/s1600/21231907_1728201464149538_3889341050637893984_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="960" height="480" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-qO0Z20h1LnI/Wa4yB2StmLI/AAAAAAAAArw/Sw5Z5LR19Dcs41MpIvR93bV05h-cn1ClwCLcBGAs/s640/21231907_1728201464149538_3889341050637893984_n.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">I look especially crazy on the far left</td></tr></tbody></table><br />I went with a good friend and got paired with 2 other groups to make a total of 8 team members. We had a few experienced team members but most people were new to escape rooming. Right when the door shut behind us and the clock started, any feeling of being strangers melted away as the adrenaline kicked in and our shared task became our shared focus.<br /><br />The puzzles themselves were clever, diverse, and rewarding. Never did I think that a puzzle felt too obscure and never did I feel like the clues were ham-fisted. Every time we solved a clue, it felt like we were in flow. A few of the puzzles and their inventive solutions were so good, you felt like giving a high five to the game master herself.<br /><br />As much as I'd like to talk about some of the particularly cool solutions, spoilers would have their full effect, and so I'll focus on the high level. Here's my thoughts on what worked, how it could have been better, and how it can inspire VR experiences.<br /><br /><ul><li>The lighting design decisions alone really gave a sense of progression through an amazing story experience. The first part of the experience takes place in a sterile white overly lit ward room and the second half takes place in an underlit dark wood paneled warden's office. And within those two acts, there are event based lighting changes as you progress through the clues. The contrasting acts and the variety in the event based lighting really kept a compelling pace which deepened the suspense and theme.</li></ul><ul><li>But what I really missed was a soundtrack. Having some brooding background music that would shift in tone and theme as we made progress or would crescendo as we got closer to solving a puzzle would have made for an epic shared story making experience. I wouldn't even need the music to be motivated by a set consistent device. In fact, having music be part of the ambiance would enhance my belief that I've stepped into a story.</li></ul><ul><li>Sound effects were used quite well across a variety of devices, but what I wanted was a clear sound effect for when a puzzle was solved. Our team was a clever bunch and did a pretty decent job of communicating all of the clues we were finding. But there were times where we were doing such a good job of plowing through the puzzles that we weren't communicating what we'd solved and what clues we'd use. Sure we wasted some time as some folks would pick up and ponder solved clues, but that's not what bugs me. The opportunity that was really missed is giving the group a clear moment to share in a team member's victory.</li></ul><ul><li>During the experience, I solved a clue here or there, but what I loved was how good I felt when another member of the team solved a puzzle. It especially felt good when everyone was thinking on the same clues and it was through talking it out that somewhat had a spark of insight. Having a shared goal, and then having shared victories on the path towards that goal created an immediate kinship. We were woohooing, fist bumping, and high fiving with folks we had just met 10 minutes ago.</li></ul><ul><li>I'm a big believer that a shared quest creates strong bonds, and I continue to believe that social adventures is the key to what will make VR exciting. But there's a design constraint we need to consider if we're to make escape room work in VR. Escape rooms are fun because everyone gets to use a full range of tools they're very familiar with in inventive ways - tools like seeking, opening, touching, pushing, talking, and listening. The problem we have with VR is that the tools we use to interact in a virtual environment are under developed. We're much closer to creating interactions that universally improve immersion over game controllers and keyboards, but the fact that we're still figuring out mechanics for simple actions like opening a drawer, flipping a switch, picking up an object, entering in a key combination, and even for interactions as simple as moving around means that the puzzles we'd make in VR need to be designed very differently if we hope to make them fun.</li></ul><ul><li>After 37 minutes, having used one hint, we solved our way to an escape and earned the #1 spot in the winner's circle! By that time, we were beaming, high fiving, and collecting phone numbers. And then we were then confronted with our last puzzle: "What should our team name be?" The funny thing is that we had become a team before we even had a name. That's how powerful a shared task is, especially under a time constraint.</li></ul>Maxwell Planckhttps://plus.google.com/103585983141096895655noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6262706974037401731.post-91150180016832414922017-08-27T20:38:00.003-07:002017-08-29T09:36:33.961-07:00stories I've experienced: The Speakeasy <span style="font-family: inherit;">Inspired by Jesse Schell's blog "<a href="http://thingsifinished.blogspot.com/">Things I finished</a>", I'm starting to write down my thoughts on stories I've experienced. It's a great way to get ideas flowing and to archive all of the stuff my mind is soaking up. I've been thinking a lot about what story making would look like in VR and so a lot of my reading, TV, movies, theater, video games, and even D&amp;D sessions have been focused around cracking this nut.</span><br /><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: inherit;">This past May on a Saturday night in an undisclosed location in San Francisco, I had the pleasure of dressing up in prohibition era outfit, made complete with a sharp looking fedora, to step inside the immersive theater experience called <a href="https://www.thespeakeasysf.com/">The&nbsp;Speakeasy</a>.&nbsp;It was an amazing night, brilliantly acted, intelligently written, and it was my favorite immersive theater experience I've had, having seen <a href="https://mckittrickhotel.com/sleep-no-more/">Sleep No More</a> and <a href="http://www.thenshefell.com/">Then She Fell</a> in NY.</span><br /><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.thespeakeasysf.com/"><img border="0" data-original-height="400" data-original-width="960" height="265" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Pyj5acDIIs4/WaONNWDRZ3I/AAAAAAAAArM/7ZO81We-o8omWhO_ZrYOVZmRoZ6dgam-wCLcBGAs/s640/The-Speakeasy-1.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: inherit;">The day after, I was so excited and inspired that I had to write down a bunch of thoughts. I'm finally getting around to posting them. Warning: there are some spoilers! Although considering that I probably only got to follow about 5% of the many story lines, it's not that much of a spoiler.</span><br /><ul><li>The complexity of the experience was in the number of story lines, and not the stories themselves. Each story line on its own was simple enough to describe in a few sentences and based on relatable tropes. It made it easier for the audience to feel empathy because they weren't spending their time piecing together a narrative puzzle. Sleep No More and Then She Fell are great experiences but poor narratives. It's so hard to read a story without dialogue.</li><li>The Speakeasy proves to me that dialogue in immersive theater works! Both Sleep No More and Then She Fell mostly use interpretive dance and I always wondered if the non-linear format just didn't work with words. Given a familiar setting of a prohibition era bar, even a setting all of us have only experienced through movies &amp; books, and simple enough topics, it's okay if the audience misses 95% of the dialogue and walks into the middle of prose. We pick up so much on body language and familiar tropes that as long as the dialogue is smartly and clearly written, we can easily drop one story line and pick up midway in another.</li><li>The moments that felt the best in immersive theater are the ones where the actor improvises on the fly and the audience knows they were going off-script. Much like how a comedian may respond to a heckler with a great come back, audiences love on-the-fly wit. It feels like a display of mastery akin to watching a great athlete adapting to the field. It also feels like a special moment that could never be repeated. Everyone involved feels special. I wish this happened more but when it did, it was magic.</li></ul><div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-yyl-Vd2bpPc/WaJHYHqZ-OI/AAAAAAAAAqw/hxPJJhdFs2Y17NPtSA-osDIXlgE029nyACLcBGAs/s1600/IMG_4942.JPG.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="400" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-yyl-Vd2bpPc/WaJHYHqZ-OI/AAAAAAAAAqw/hxPJJhdFs2Y17NPtSA-osDIXlgE029nyACLcBGAs/s400/IMG_4942.JPG.jpeg" width="300" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 12.8px;">Dressed to impress and immerse</td></tr></tbody></table></div><ul><li>One of the problems with immersive theater is that you can feel like you're doing it wrong. There were times where I had to fight down a fear of missing out. Was I using my limited time wisely? Was this the most interesting thing going on at this particular moment? Certainly some story lines must be better than others. But when I did discover a story line that was really compelling, the feeling that I had discovered it felt really good. I'm not sure how to address the fear of missing out. Perhaps it's unavoidable and the other side of the coin of what makes immersive theater fun.</li><li>Some of the most memorable moments were when the actors engaged us. It could be as simple as looking us in the eye, asking a rhetorical question, patting us on the back, or handing us something. Handing off an object was especially effective. It makes the connection with the story tangible, literally. This resonates with what we found while developing story experiences in VR.&nbsp;</li><li>The way the play began for us was inspired for the format. We started in a bar with assigned seating and so it felt more like a classic theater experience. It really takes advantage of the "antechamber" idea we found in VR story telling. Before giving us too much choice, they made sure to warm us up to the idea that the story is happening all around. To do that, the bar scene uses paradigms we were all familiar with: we had assigned seats; we were a captive audience; the lighting helped direct our eye. We were let loose to choose where to go and what to do only after we were given time to feel immersed.</li><li>The story line we followed the most was about this particular cabaret girl who felt enslaved to the owner of the Speakeasy as she worked to pay off her brother's gambling debts. To see her emotional arch play out in several venues was enthralling- as a voyeur behind the mirror, as a member of the crowd watching her lash out at her brother in the casino, and then as an audience member watching her as she performed on stage. It was especially powerful to see the anguish on her face while she was dancing and know the reason. It felt like a level of intimacy you cannot experience in any other medium because the choices we made to follow her made it our story too.</li><li>There was a particular moment where the cabaret girl with the deadbeat brother flipped out on stage and then ran into the cramped corridors. She began to tear off her revealing dress in an elaborate display of rage and despair all the way down to a body suit. The act was so elaborate that it became a dance performance. It helped frame the moment as something we were watching instead of something we were participating in. It would have been difficult for her to express her rage as well as improvise against the variability of the audience in this confined space. Unfortunately, this broke immersion for me. I would have loved it if the actress had a way to flip out in the context of whatever the audience was doing in that small space. If it was busy, she could shove passed people. If it was only a few people who stared at her, she could lash out and say "What are you looking at?" To see her emotionally and physically stripped bare without losing immersion would have left an impression that would have been unparalleled.</li><li>The act of chasing a story thread was really fun. I loved the moment where our cabaret girl ran out and we were so compelled to just get up out of our seats and follow her. I am wondering how you could capture this same idea in VR considering the difficulty with locomotion. My only thought at this time is to design an experience with zero-G locomotion mechanics so the audience feels like they can follow with grab and pull. Teleporting always breaks presence for me.</li><li>There were times where I could tell the theater design was working around the limitations of an audience who didn't know what they were doing. For example, the beginning scene at the bar was designed so everyone was seated in known spots the actors could work around. In VR, the story makers have a lot more control over a visitor's presence, how they interact ability, and whether their voice is audible, or even how it sounds. This gives a lot of power to a VR host to control the moments where agency may get in the way of readability. If the audience member violates the rules of the world with that agency, you can easily mute action and voice.</li><li>One of the most impactful scenes for me was a quick act of infidelity with Viola, an innocent cabaret girl learning how to hustle, and the "Hardware guy", an unremarkable bloke with a weak moral compass. We all watched this intimate moment behind the glass as what played out was heart wrenching. It was a type of moment that would have been told with a wide framed, long shot in cinema, letting the slow burn soak into us. But the fact that this wasn't shot behind a lens and that it was happening live right in front of us made it almost too real and incredibly memorable.</li><li>The mechanics of being able to see behind the dressing room mirror and being able to look into the owner's office through little windows felt fantastic (and fantastical), but broke our immersion in the space. It felt like we were stepping out of our character and into the role of a ghostly voyeur. Especially considering how dressed up we all got for it, it felt like all moments should have been grounded in the roles we were playing. That being said, the moments where the story blinked into dance or memory or theatrics where the actors no longer inhabited the physical space but acted out dreams, memories or flash backs were really cool. I was willing to suspend my disbelief for those context switches. What may have made the experience better is that when we were blinked into a detached scene, along with changing the lighting and sound, it would be amazing if the set mechanic changed as well. Imagine a moment where the audience didn't know there was a one way mirror in the set, and only during one of these blinks does the mirror suddenly become transparent. If the set could shift to have the physical space reflect the emotional space the actors were blinking into, it would be amazing. This is expensive and complicated to do in the physical world, but in VR ...</li></ul>Maxwell Planckhttps://plus.google.com/103585983141096895655noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6262706974037401731.post-3732162865738303642017-08-14T08:08:00.001-07:002017-08-17T16:46:45.418-07:00VR is not for story telling, it's for story making<div style="-en-clipboard: true;">3 years ago, I thought VR was the next great medium for story telling. My team and I worked hard to see if we were onto something. We did some outstanding work, work I'm proud of. But since my <a href="http://variety.com/2017/digital/news/oculus-story-studio-shutting-down-1202409809/">team was disbanded</a>&nbsp;this past May, I've had a moment to pause and reflect on the first steps we took. Looking back, I now think I was wrong.<br /><br />VR is not for story telling, it's for story making.</div><div><br /></div><div>We all love being told a great story, a hero's journey we can relate to, and perhaps apply something to be learned in our own lives. But the stories we are told are never our own. Whether we are told a story through a book, on stage, on screen, or in person, the order of events has already been decided and we the audience can have no influence over it. </div><div><br /></div><div>Film and television have become the most popular story telling media because the tools that define them, composition and editing, can so easily convey a complex order of events in an accessible and readable way, especially considered how well the audience understands those media after having grown up with them.</div><div><br /></div><div>To think that VR, which takes away framing as a tool, could be a superior form of linear narration was naive. I don't kick myself for that naivety, because it wasn't obvious until we tried. At the beginning, any new medium is always underutilized or misused. Just like the first film makers thought the best use of a camera was to put it in front of a stage play, we early VR pioneers thought we would take away the 4th wall but could still tell the same kind of stories. It takes lots of trial and error before a medium has its first <i>Citizen Kane</i>.</div><div><br /></div><div>So over the past few months, I've taken a step back and thought about what VR is truly good at, the feeling of being there, and I've realized that instead of trying to tell stories, we need to have our visitors make their own. </div><div><br /></div><div>The problem is that if you create a world and then ask your visitors to craft their own stories within that world, that is a blank canvas that's way too intimidating and inevitably unfulfilling. We need to find a way to define a road worth traveling that can lead to moments of awe, discovery and excitement but give the visitor enough agency and compulsion to walk the road for themselves. </div><div><br /></div><div>I believe we can do this in 2 ways. </div><div><br /></div><div>First, the compelling stories we make in our own lives are always with others and most often with our friends. VR must be a social experience. </div><div><br /></div><div>Second, give those group of friends a shared goal and a suggestion of how to get there. A quest is the right kind of story hook and its in the journey that you create memories together. If we can capture that excitement that comes from bonding together and accomplishing something as a team, I think we'd be getting closer to what will make VR work. In many ways, this is what multiplayer games try to do, but how my approach may differ is that I think the design of the experience should focus on the journey's arc and less on the feeling of accomplishment that comes at the end.</div><div><br />I am excited to be working in the social VR space and to be thinking up new ways of how friends can come together to go on virtual adventures.</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-hbtimRxhsq4/WZE2Qrl9l_I/AAAAAAAAAqI/ub93x5Iqx8QtlsQWQbsAMON5wewf3KY7ACLcBGAs/s1600/18588794_10102316024600059_4831393853029803576_o-2323.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="900" data-original-width="1600" height="360" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-hbtimRxhsq4/WZE2Qrl9l_I/AAAAAAAAAqI/ub93x5Iqx8QtlsQWQbsAMON5wewf3KY7ACLcBGAs/s640/18588794_10102316024600059_4831393853029803576_o-2323.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div><br /></div>Maxwell Planckhttps://plus.google.com/103585983141096895655noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6262706974037401731.post-48034218357514357492017-08-06T21:53:00.001-07:002017-08-08T19:09:08.609-07:00Siggraph 2017 marks a turning point<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-83B8SNf5dNA/WYfs6mGENhI/AAAAAAAAApI/B98MUkKKwoU9M5_M-WT5zAXbq83Sbm8iwCLcBGAs/s1600/siggraph-2017-badge.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="181" data-original-width="339" height="170" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-83B8SNf5dNA/WYfs6mGENhI/AAAAAAAAApI/B98MUkKKwoU9M5_M-WT5zAXbq83Sbm8iwCLcBGAs/s320/siggraph-2017-badge.png" width="320" /></a></div><br />I came away from Siggraph this year inspired, and surprised! I haven't felt this way about Siggraph in a while.<br /><br />I remember my first Siggraph in 2004 where I was giddy and overwhelmed by the amazing things happening in computer graphics. In fact, I think that first Siggraph was the reason I decided to make CG my life's work. Year after year, I thoroughly enjoyed watching the improvements in simulation, shading &amp; lighting, geometry manipulation, and rendering.<br /><br />But it was around 2011 when I began feeling like the paper titles were getting longer and more obscure to compensate for the fact that the contributions felt like they were making smaller and smaller steps forward. The production talks continued to be somewhat interesting, but they became more about efficient pipelines and entertaining anecdotes about adventures in technical creation. It felt like innovation in the field was plateauing.<br /><br />It was also around this time where I had this sinking feeling that computer animation and visual effects had become a mature industry, and I found myself sneaking away to all of the realtime sessions. That feeling eventually grew into a decision to leave software rendering and go into realtime VR.<br /><br />And I wasn't the only one, I felt like the "Advanced in Realtime Rendering" course kept getting bigger and bigger as attendance in path tracing and PBR rendering talks shrank. Worse than shifting attendance, many were opting out of the conference altogether as overall registration declined since its peak in the 2000s. More of a concern for the organizers, companies were deciding not to exhibit, and exhibitor fees are a serious revenue stream for Siggraph's governing body.<br /><br />Since I've moved over to VR, I have also started attending GDC, where I found myself reinvigorated by all of the interesting problems still ahead in the area of realtime. In contrast, Siggraph just wasn't exciting any more.<br /><br />But this year, it felt different. Despite the fact that this was the smallest exhibition I've seen to date, emerging venues like the VR Village and the new VR Theater were signs that Siggraph is pivoting in a new and promising direction. Furthermore, research and talk topics are swinging towards VR, AR and machine learning techniques, areas that have a lot of undiscovered promise.<br /><br />I have a theory, most likely a well studied theory in Economics, that there is a cycle in technology development between spurts of innovation as new promising areas of research are uncovered and plateaus of maturity, and this cycle drives a lagging curve of commercialization.<br /><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-gBNruAWUibc/WYfx98e5s0I/AAAAAAAAApk/SAQ1PV2n1v48FbTRfTbz7376IYd1aF9oACEwYBhgL/s1600/siggraph_2017_innovationcurve.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="640" data-original-width="1006" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-gBNruAWUibc/WYfx98e5s0I/AAAAAAAAApk/SAQ1PV2n1v48FbTRfTbz7376IYd1aF9oACEwYBhgL/s1600/siggraph_2017_innovationcurve.jpg" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 12.8px;">time is not to scale and growth is conceptual</td></tr></tbody></table></td></tr></tbody></table>My idea is that as new areas of innovation show promise and gain momentum, ways of turning that rapid progress into thriving business soon follows. But as the innovation curve starts to plateau, the commercialized space gets over saturated and goes through a correction. I think what's happened over the last 7 years with the decline of exhibitors at Siggraph is a sign of that correction.<br /><br />But what's so exciting about what I saw at this past Siggraph is that although the exhibitor attendance was its lowest in the past 12 years, individual attendance feels like it's creeping up and the areas of research felt fresher than ever.<br /><br />I think Siggraph 2017 may mark a turning point, showing signs that we are in the first few years of an innovation spurt, and I think it will take a few more years before we see the market respond.<br /><br />There were 4 particular moments that stood out for me at the conference.<br /><ol><li>I got to experience <a href="http://www.neurable.com/">Neurable's </a>brain pattern recognition technology for VR. It was not only magical but incredibly stylish integration with the Vive. It does some interesting tricks with pattern matching, sensing voltaic patterns on the scalp, and using machine learning to turn that sensor data into intent. It's very comfortable and absolutely works.<br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.neurable.com/"><img border="0" data-original-height="656" data-original-width="1600" height="260" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-ZkyDs1T0d2o/WYftERo7EUI/AAAAAAAAApM/_rCmljF-xlMi0GzCI-roqjP4DvkR2ABDwCLcBGAs/s640/Neurable-Neurotech-logo.jpg" width="640" /></a><span id="goog_999318942"></span><a href="https://www.blogger.com/"></a><span id="goog_999318943"></span></div></li><li>I've been excited about point based rendering as a way to stream volumetric capture and the new renderer from Nurulize, called AtomView, shows that you can see through the lack of topology and find appeal in simply displaying points. I think an audience enjoys "filling in the blanks" with their own imagination over being shown an approximation that is a little wrong, leading to the Uncanny Valley problem. Also, it's so easy to create stream based, dynamically optimizing solution when you're only throwing points to the GPU.<br /><div style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="338" mozallowfullscreen="" src="https://player.vimeo.com/video/227567854?title=0&amp;byline=0&amp;portrait=0" webkitallowfullscreen="" width="640"></iframe></div></li><li>The talk on how the designers of Google Earth VR made it a better feeling app had some great insights and design decisions. I'm especially proud of Per Karlsson who had some great ideas in the design of the app.&nbsp;I had the honor of supervising Per during my time at Pixar.<br /><div style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/MjnR_VipKNQ?ecver=1" width="560"></iframe></div></li><li>One of my favorite traditions of Siggraph is the Electronic Theater. It's still one of my greatest wishes that I could have been in the crowd back in 1986 when Luxo Jr. was first shown to the world at the Electronic Theater, and a room full of scientists erupted to see their research turned into magic. Most of the projects are really inspiring and remind me why I love making a art with technology. My top 2 favorites were emotionally powerful and ingeniously executed. They were&nbsp;<a href="http://www.polderanimation.com/scrambled.htm">Scrambled by Polder Animation</a> and "Happy Valentine's Day" by <a href="http://neymarcvisuals.com/">Neymarc Visuals</a>.</li></ol>Maxwell Planckhttps://plus.google.com/103585983141096895655noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6262706974037401731.post-40632719805230608652017-07-22T13:06:00.001-07:002017-07-25T18:24:46.686-07:00The growing skill gap <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-GKmyelAKXRI/WXfraIwSrVI/AAAAAAAAAoY/nl5TxYPY7LsssW8HMphpDmI0XW1qdFFZACLcBGAs/s1600/skill_gap.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="728" data-original-width="1200" height="388" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-GKmyelAKXRI/WXfraIwSrVI/AAAAAAAAAoY/nl5TxYPY7LsssW8HMphpDmI0XW1qdFFZACLcBGAs/s640/skill_gap.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br />For those of us lucky to be working on the bleeding edge of tech, we get to work on some of the coolest problems in automation, artificial intelligence, robotics, and virtual and augmented reality. We are driven to innovate not just because they are cool problems but because we believe what we invent makes life better for everyone. Technology like self driving cars, robot driven assembly lines, image classification, speech recognition and translation all have the promise to make our lives better.<br /><br />The hope of any enriching technology is that it frees our time to pursue a richer life. But if that is our goal, we need to be mindful of the skill gap we are creating between those who are early adopters of new technology and those who adopt later. And this gap could actually be doing more harm than good.<br /><br />A lot of people contribute to society by taxiing passengers, working on a factory floor, labeling and sorting information, and translating foreign languages - skills that are being made obsolete by those same futuristic technologies we work on. As tech continues to get better we may invent ourselves out of usefulness. Considering how hard it is to learn new skills to catch up on an accelerating wo, technological progress will lead towards a bankruptcy of purpose.<br /><br />If not addressed, this bankruptcy can have dire consequences on progress. I believe we are already seeing signs of problems with the dramatic shifts in world politics away from science backed thinking and towards populism, nationalism and a fear of reasoning. This is probably why messaging of climate change is still not getting through.<br /><br />Progress is the right path forward, but is there a way we can also solve the problem of the growing skill gap?<br /><br />This is where I think virtual reality may be able to help. My favorite feature of VR is how it has created the most intuitive interface for how we interact with computers. Up until now, our interaction has been a difficult abstraction through mouse clicks and keyboard strokes. With VR, I see new users pick it up within seconds. We've all grown up knowing how to move, look around, reach out to touch and grab things; VR just taps into those instincts. We can convey so much complexity with the ease of natural gesturing and soak up so much information through the ease of immersion.<br /><br />It's my belief that we'll be able to take advantage of this facility by creating educational VR experiences that will make it much easier to learn new, relevant skills. Unfortunately, making virtual content also suffers from a skill gap. Those who know how to create in this new space are mostly game makers who are passionate about making games. Those who are passionate about education technology are still learning the skills to create useful virtual experiences.<br /><br />That's why it should be an important goal for this new industry to make it easier to be a content developer. Heavily documented and community backed game engines like Unity and the Unreal Engine are a good start but are still designed around making games. We need the next generation of VR developer tools to make it easier for educators to get involved.<br /><br />The progress of technology is inevitable, but we need to remember that technology should also be used to close the skill gap it creates. And it starts by closing the skill gap with the tools we use to teach.Maxwell Planckhttps://plus.google.com/103585983141096895655noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6262706974037401731.post-46271819998003866482017-07-07T09:17:00.000-07:002017-07-07T12:27:54.416-07:00OnwardAbout 2 months ago, <a href="http://variety.com/2017/digital/news/oculus-story-studio-shutting-down-1202409809/">my virtual reality studio was shut down</a>.&nbsp;The closure was sudden and a stunning punch to the gut. It was a decision I very much disagreed with, but it was a decision I can understand considering the larger context of the VR industry and the difficult path ahead.<br /><br />Before going onto what may be next, I've needed some time to recover from that blow, and reflect. In writing this public diary entry, my hope is that it will not only help me plant a sign post for the journey so far but perhaps serve as a way to leave behind what needs to be left.<br /><br />Considering what we were able to accomplish in 3 years, I am proud of the work we did to see what this new medium could look like. Lost, Henry, and Dear Angelica were as much experiment as they were entertainment, and our mission was far from accomplished. But any pioneering work needs to start somewhere. When these pieces first premiered in 2015, 2016, and 2017 respectively, they contributed new nouns and verbs to how we talked about VR entertainment.<br /><br />The thing I am proudest of is the team we assembled. Story Studio was a group of some of the best computer animation, visual effects and game makers in their industries who were all excited to stake new claims in a risky frontier. I know this because during the interview for every team member, I took a moment to warn of the dangers of being so far from civilization. I spoke of how I was excited to be discovering what no one had ever done before, but that as exciting as the discovery was, it was difficult to predict what was around the next corner, how long the journey would take, and what setbacks we'd need to overcome. I'd even be as honest to say that I couldn't guarantee the studio would still be around in 6 months. Some interviewees blanched at the uncertainty, but I knew those that came back with eyes wide open and excited about what lies ahead, they would make great team members.<br /><br />I am confident that the seeds of this team, now having scattered out into the world, will go on to help grow the forests that will define our cultural and technical landscape.<br /><br />Then there's what needs to be left behind. I've struggled with the guilt that we weren't able to convince our leadership we were a bet worth making. I've struggled&nbsp;with a bruised ego that inevitably comes from a fall like this despite how lucky we were to get the opportunity in the first place. I've struggled&nbsp;with the fear that capturing the kind of lightning we had only happens once in a lifetime. I need to constantly remind myself that all of these suffocating thoughts aren't worth my energy if I'm to get on with my journey.<br /><br />In early 2014, I made the difficult decision to leave the comfort and renown of Pixar and embark on a journey to do something novel, scary and groundbreaking. I would have been happy to find a creative problem worth solving that may have taken 3 to 5 years and given me the opportunity to see what it was like to grow a team from the beginning. I was ecstatic to find virtual reality, a problem so big that it wasn't just about creating a new product on an existing platform, it was about figuring out a new medium-- a problem that would take the rest of my career. The horizon line stretched far beyond an unknown and perilous frontier. It was daunting, inspiring, and irresistible.<br /><br />This closure is a particularly humbling setback and it's given me a moment to pause and reflect on if I should turn around. Am I so driven towards the promise of gold in California that I'm blind to the fact it may be a fool's journey?<br /><br />I don't think so. There are enough brilliant, thoughtful, and future savvy people that believe in VR. It remains undeniable that VR has the potential to change our relationship with digital content, making it a richer, expansive and more meaningful experience. I continue to be awed and inspired by the innovation that continues to happen on a weekly basis.<br /><br />As for what's next, I have decided to continue towards the horizon of what VR may become, even during this particular stretch of desert. I may plot a slightly different course than what we were doing at Story Studio, but my goal is still to give a visitor something that is immersive, memorable, and emotionally engaging. My sights have changed in that now I also believe that for VR to truly find itself as a medium, it must be an experience you share with your friends. But that's for a future post...<br /><br />It's time to dust myself off and push onward.Maxwell Planckhttps://plus.google.com/103585983141096895655noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6262706974037401731.post-73881433861510412452016-10-23T20:25:00.000-07:002016-11-30T22:47:13.748-08:00Leading via QuestionsThere's a pivotal moment in the lifetime of a growing team where its leadership no longer has enough information to be responsible for how that team gets things done. And if both team members and leadership don't recognize their roles need to change, it can be frustrating for everyone.<br /><br />When a team is small and the leadership has the capacity to be in the trenches, there's a lot of efficiency in having your more experienced decision makers steering the work. By working so closely with everyone, leaders are operating with shared context that team members can trust and the leaders can course correct quickly based on all of the feedback they get.<br /><br />There is a point, however, where the responsibilities of leading and protecting a larger team make it more difficult for leadership to spend time in the trenches. When that happens, if the leaders keep involving themselves in areas in which they are now so woefully uninformed compared to those they lead, it becomes meddling-- a serious impediment to getting things done. &nbsp;Up until that point, the natural relationship was one of leader and followers and so it's not evident that there's a moment where the team knows a lot more on how stuff gets done.<br /><br />Over the past year, with my studio having grown to more than 25 people,&nbsp;I've been working on this role change. There's a few interesting problems to solve. If I am accountable for, but no longer responsible for how stuff gets done, how do I pull that off? How do I help those team members that are not used to being decision makers develop this skill? What are the skills I need to grow in this new role and how do I improve? And how do I do all of this while making sure that trust flows both ways?<br /><br />I have one solution that has had some success. I try to ask questions like I'm the student and they're the teacher. If I am now less informed on how things are getting done, it makes sense that I'm the one who needs to be taught.<br /><br />This has had several effects:<br /><ol><li>By making it clear that I respect and want to learn from what the team is doing, they feel trusted and empowered.&nbsp;</li><li>Because I have a lot of decision making experience and a 10,000 foot view, the type of questions I ask can probe and reveal problems the team hasn't seen from their angle. If I'm not satisfied with where things appear to be going, asking followup questions can either help the team realize they haven't thought something through or help them craft an argument that is satisfying for me. In both cases, the team is the one coming up with the answers.&nbsp;</li><li>Over time, I've noticed the team is getting better at anticipating the questions I would ask and in effect getting better at their own decision making.&nbsp;</li><li>For those moments when I still need to make the decision, there's now a clear relationship for how the team gets involved leading up to that decision and for when unexpected consequences may need correcting.</li></ol>After a year, I still make mistakes where I'll give trench level direction that comes off as uninformed and meddling. It's easy to lapse back into the comfort of being the one who decides, a skill I've developed and gotten good at over the last 6 years. When this happens, it's been really exciting when my team, having developed leadership skills of their own, are now actively coming to me, letting me know what context I may have missed, and teaching me something about how I can be a better leader.Maxwell Planckhttps://plus.google.com/103585983141096895655noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6262706974037401731.post-48993945816030657682016-10-02T17:29:00.000-07:002016-10-02T17:29:10.213-07:00The Finishing TrollsWe've recently finished our third project at the studio, and as proud as I am of it, I'm glad these final months are over. It's not the desk work that tired me out - that blood and sweat comes from my amazing team. The hard part about finishing is having the strength and discipline to know that it's good enough. As a producer, I was constantly tested in making the hard decisions necessary to ship it even when more time and effort could always make it better. And that's the haunting fact about making something creative— you can always make it better. But until you actually put it in front of an audience, it doesn't count. One of my favorite lessons from Pixar, expressed elegantly by John Lasseter, is that a film is never finished, it's just released.<br /><br />The problem with working on a creative and highly technical product like what we make at Story Studio is that over the long amount of time it takes to develop, produce and finish a VR movie, you can lose what excited you about the project at the start. And then you start worrying if it's not just fatigue, but something more fundamentally wrong.<br /><br />And this isn't new to anyone who creates. Self-doubt and angst are trolls that move in during those last few months of finishing. But in a medium as young as VR, I feel like the trolls are especially tricky. Not only do you begin doubting the project, but you also begin worrying if the audience will even get it. We've now spent so many more hours in VR than the average consumer that I worry my experience will mislead us into thinking we know what will entertain. One of the tricks to producing is to find the strength to ignore those trolls and push through that last mile.<br /><br />I have to thank my experience at Pixar for helping me stay strong. &nbsp;While there, I was lucky enough to see 3 feature films through to the end— Cars, Wall•e and Up. &nbsp;I got to experience what it's like to spend so long on a project that you begin focusing on the flaws and forget what makes the film great. For each of those projects, as much as I and my fellow team members cringed to know all of the things we just didn't have time to fix, all of those films came out as beautiful, entertaining and critically acclaimed films. If I could be tricked into doubting Pixar films, and then be blown away by their reception, then those trolls aren't worth listening to.<br /><br />As for knowing if the young VR audience will get it and be entertained, that's part of frontier life with this new medium. The only way we'll know if what we're doing works is to have the faith and guts to put something finished out into the world and see what happens. If we spent all of our time trying to perfect our experiences, we would never learn anything. Furthermore, with each VR movie we complete at Story Studio, it helps me build up a tolerance against those tricksy trolls.<br /><br />That all being said, I can't wait to show you what we've done. &nbsp;It's inspiring, unexpected, and I guarantee it's something different than anything you've experienced before.Maxwell Planckhttps://plus.google.com/103585983141096895655noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6262706974037401731.post-57995126902653772262016-07-17T21:39:00.000-07:002016-07-17T21:39:32.068-07:00AR will improve how we live, VR will change how we liveI had an interesting conversation with a friend this past weekend that got me thinking about the promise of augmented reality vs. virtual reality. My friend, who's opinion of technology I respect a great deal and who has enough VR and AR experience to have an informed opinion, said that he could see how augmented reality will be big, but he still didn't understand virtual reality. This makes a lot of sense to me, and I still remain as bullish as ever on virtual reality. VR has the potential to change culture which, for me, is more exciting than augmenting it. Because of this potential, however, it's much harder to envision what the future of virtual reality looks like compared to augmented reality's.<br /><br />When you think of the potential of AR, it's easy to think of how a heads up display would augment driving, navigating, classroom learning, cooking, meetings, shopping, etc. These are activities we do every day and to add an effortless layer of technology that improves that experience is a no brainer. But most of the uses I can think of for VR don't improve existing activities, they try to define a new way of doing things. Some of my favorite VR learning apps don't take you to a classroom, but transport you across the solar system or scale you down to the size of an atom. As support for a virtual desktop improves and eventually starts taking advantage of the depth dimension, it has the potential to redefine what an office looks like. If you follow our work at Oculus Story Studio, you can see how VR has required us to rethink how we tell stories and how the audience experiences them.<br /><br />Immersion, the defining feature of VR, is a problem and a benefit: it's a problem because every VR experience needs to reward all of the user's attention; it's a benefit because if we succeed, all of that experience is something you've never had before. The leap your imagination needs to take to add technology to what you've already experience is a smaller one. Imagining a completely new experience that will redefine how you go about your day requires a leap of faith, and will never be fully convincing as an idea. You have to eventually see it for yourself.<br /><br />I know many people who have found a compelling experience in VR-- whether it was from playing a game, seeing a story, watching a sporting event in a virtual space, or being in a virtual dance party. Of all the potential experiences you can have in VR right now, I totally get that a lot of people haven't found something that clicks for them. Talk of a single killer app that will convert everyone is the wrong approach. There are so many different uses of VR that I think everyone will come to it for their own reasons. I accept that my friend hasn't found that app that convinces him of a new way of doing things. I have faith that given time, the innovativeness of the VR community, and the inevitable improvement of the technology, enough "killer apps" will be created to cover a large range of interests, including my friend's.Maxwell Planckhttps://plus.google.com/103585983141096895655noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6262706974037401731.post-84393954451642490362016-01-18T12:15:00.002-08:002016-06-04T20:05:51.595-07:00A Culture of CritiqueIt's undeniably a good practice, as uncontroversial as eating well and getting more sleep. It's a skill that applies to every profession you can think of. &nbsp;You can always get better at doing it, and when done right, it will always lead to making you and your team better. &nbsp;And I believe it to be the difference between what rises to greatness and what falls into mediocrity.<br /><br />Asking for critique and then mindfully acting on it is the best skill for improving everything you do, and it's also one of the hardest things to practice. &nbsp;We're just not naturally wired to do it. &nbsp;To ask for criticism is to overcome one of our base fears, to expose ourselves to being judged as less than we think we are.<br /><br />It's hard to say what makes Pixar "a lightning in a bottle" studio, but one thing I did learn during my time there is how a strong feedback culture leads to better story. &nbsp;I got to see many crappy "Pixar films" in my 10 years, but none of them were ever shown beyond the studio walls. &nbsp;They were all internal screenings. &nbsp;During production, all films are assembled as a complete viewable experience at regular intervals and shown to the crew and creative leadership. &nbsp;These internal screenings are edited together using whatever assets are available at that time of production- rough story boards, scratch audio, and unlit renders– until the final screening includes all animated, lit and rendered shots. &nbsp;After every screening, feedback is given and the director uses those notes to make the story better for the next iteration.<br /><br />The directors hated these internal screenings. &nbsp;They were forced to put their baby up for criticism every 4 months and let an audience of film making experts point out its flaws. &nbsp;And even though the screenings could sometimes create doubt and disruption, they were done on every production without exception. &nbsp;It was so entrenched in the process that it was just the cost of playing.<br /><br />In the absence of a strong culture like Pixar's, it's very hard to ask a director of a creative project to be so naked in front of their team. &nbsp;The stress of making anything creative is tough as is. &nbsp;But I believe it was only when a film had gone through enough iterations and improvements that it rose to the level of excellence that audiences expect from Pixar. &nbsp;And this is why Pixar's batting average is so much higher than the film industry's.<br /><br />We're striving to build this culture at our studio and it's not easy. &nbsp;Not only do you need to account for the extra process it takes to be producing a screening at regular intervals (we're calling them rough assemblies), but you also need to build trust between the crew and directors. &nbsp;The crew needs to provide constructive notes while being sensitive to their director's vulnerability, and the director must convey receptiveness while taking criticism.<br /><br />Something we've been trying to do is to create a "notes window" after a screening. After the screening, the entire team can send notes for fixed number of days. &nbsp;Discussion threads spawn and can keep active until the window closes. &nbsp;It's strongly encouraged that team members not only call out what isn't working, but to highlight what they love. &nbsp;Once the window ends, all official notes traffic ends. &nbsp;Our director can then digest, be creative and respond with a synopsis of the new direction in which she wants to go. &nbsp;She doesn't need to acknowledge or defend her decisions against every note, but it's a tactful skill to make the team feel heard even if she might disagree with the majority. &nbsp;The window provides some piece of mind as to when the director can expect to feel vulnerable and when she should feel protected. &nbsp;We've found that it's too hard to be receptive and creative at the same time.<br /><br />Given time and consistency, it's my hope that a culture of critique grows so fundamental to our process that it will just become the cost of playing. &nbsp;So far, I'm very proud of the direction we're heading. &nbsp;It doesn't hurt that a lot of us at Story Studio already come from a place like Pixar where this culture of critique is so strong and proven.Maxwell Planckhttps://plus.google.com/103585983141096895655noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6262706974037401731.post-54900327627194800392015-11-19T22:48:00.001-08:002015-11-22T19:40:42.751-08:00Stop Climbing Out of the Uncanny Valley I've been playing video games since my first NES. &nbsp;I grew up with Mario, Sonic, Megaman and Fox McCloud. &nbsp;Back then, the 8-bit machines forced stylization in character design: there wasn't enough pixels or compute power to render realism. &nbsp;So the game makers worked with the constraints. Mario is a plumber because with only 16 pixel rows to work with, the designers needed the mustache and overalls to create definition for his nose, chin, and body.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-enAxu1aBcq8/VkjtIGAKoDI/AAAAAAAAAeI/4bBuvn3aTpQ/s1600/uncannyvalley.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-enAxu1aBcq8/VkjtIGAKoDI/AAAAAAAAAeI/4bBuvn3aTpQ/s320/uncannyvalley.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><br />Since that time, we have far outgrown 8-bit. &nbsp;Games are now built on top of gigabytes of dedicated graphics memory and have a little over 2 million pixels of screen real estate. &nbsp;Shouldn't more horsepower and more pixels lead to more beautiful realism and as a result, a more appealing character? And it's not just the tech that's getting better. &nbsp;Today's artists are more skilled and have way more tools than those early developers. &nbsp;Shouldn't the expertly crafted detail lead to a better product?<br /><br />In my opinion, character design is getting worse, and it's all because of the Uncanny Valley.<br /><br />In brief, the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncanny_valley" target="_blank">Uncanny Valley</a> is a postulate widely accepted in robotics and computer animation that the more a fabricated character tries to act and look like a real human, the more we subconsciously notice what's wrong, and therefore reject the fabrication as creepy.<br /><br />Here's an example of <a href="http://kotaku.com/a-ps4-games-quest-to-make-a-realistic-woman-1741024129" target="_blank">state of the art work in games from Ninja Theory</a>. &nbsp;The detail they're getting out of the high res scans is mind boggling - down to finger print accurate resolution. <br /><br /><div align="center"><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/mcB0hlkliV4" width="560"></iframe></div><br />And I have to admit that the still images of the CG character in neutral pose are looking pretty good. Where it all breaks down is when the character starts moving. &nbsp;Even if the game makers capture a wide range of neutral and active poses, humans are so adept at discerning meaning from facial differences as little as millimeters apart, there's no algorithm that can blend between those poses that captures a completely believable human face. &nbsp;Most who aspire to be actors have a hard time achieving believability, why do we think a computer could do any better?<br /><br />What's frustrating is that even though today's game designers know they are making creepy characters, many of them have this unshakeable belief that with a little more technology and a few more clever ideas, they will eventually converge to the limit. &nbsp;If you rephrase the Uncanny Valley premise from the creative's perspective, the more you try to climb out of the Valley, the harder it gets. Sounds like a classic case of diminishing returns.<br /><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://thepunchlineismachismo.com/images/uncannytoaster.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://thepunchlineismachismo.com/images/uncannytoaster.jpg" height="280" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Image grabbed from <a href="http://thepunchlineismachismo.com/archives/730">Manly Guys doing Manly Things</a>.</td></tr></tbody></table><br />I think there are two alternative paths that could lead towards better ways out of the Valley.<br /><br />The first is obvious: don't even try climbing the difficult side. &nbsp;Use our wide range of tools, talent and technology to make something you would never see in real world - like a stylized illustration come to life. &nbsp;We are much better as humans in finding appeal in the fantastic than we are at forgiving flaws in the realistic. &nbsp;In the 80s, tech limitations forced stylization. &nbsp;Now, stylization is a choice worth making.<br /><br />The second comes from thinking how film captures appealing character. &nbsp;Humans are not very sensitive to temporal gaps in what we see and so flashing a moving picture 24 times a second is not distracting and has been used for over a century in the cinema. &nbsp;We also know that a film of a good actor can be incredibly appealing. &nbsp;So what if instead of capturing high resolution scans of static poses, we scan actors as they act at around 30 times per second. &nbsp;There's already promising tech going in this direction coming out of teams like <a href="http://8i.com/">8i.com</a>, <a href="http://www.uncorporeal.com/">Uncorporeal</a>,&nbsp;and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kZ-XZIV-o8s">Microsoft Research</a>.<br /><br /><div align="center"><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/kZ-XZIV-o8s" width="560"></iframe></div><br />We can then play that 3D capture back at 30 poses per second without needing any blending for the in between frames, even if the game is rendering at 60 or 90 fps. &nbsp;Where this becomes a problem is that game developers like a simplified model, usually in the form of a joint hierarchy. &nbsp;With a simplified model, developers can drive a character that can be affected by interactive input, like when the player hits the "jump" button. &nbsp;Furthermore, the joint hierarchy is a good way to compress movement data so you don't need to download 1TB of data to see a cutscene. <br /><br />But I think <i>these</i> are the problems worth working on. &nbsp;Instead of finding a way to fabricate acting with an algorithm, even if that algorithm is fed by scans and motion capture, find algorithms that solve the problems of using dynamically scanned acting.<br /><br />Stop struggling to climb out of the Uncanny Valley on the hard side. &nbsp;We should either walk back up the easier side towards more stylized characters, or avoid falling into the Valley all together by finding better ways to record actors in 3D. &nbsp;In the latter case, the problems worth solving are around interactivity and compression, problems better solved with a computer anyways.Maxwell Planckhttps://plus.google.com/103585983141096895655noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6262706974037401731.post-40479931622675730392015-10-17T15:46:00.000-07:002015-10-17T20:49:02.460-07:00Less Meetings, More Artifacts<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">I feel like I've been fighting the gravitational pull of "too many meetings" ever since I became a supervisor. &nbsp;At heart, I'm a software engineer, a maker. &nbsp;I'm naturally a meeting minimilast: code doesn't get written in meetings. But as projects get more complex and a team grows to match, good communication requires structure. And a well prepped meeting is often the best way to make communication work.</div><br />The problem is that meetings are addictive. &nbsp;One good meeting makes you think the next will be just as effective. You forget that most of the work that makes a good meeting happens before it starts. &nbsp;And as the meetings increase in frequency, it's hard to gear down when your prep time is overrun. You go from meeting to meeting without any prep and as a result they keep getting less and less effective.<br /><br />In my experience, all of the best meetings I've ever attended were about reviewing an artifact - something that took time and skill to make. &nbsp;An artifact can be a board of concept art, a digital sculpt, a build of the game, work in progress lighting captures, etc. &nbsp;Technical artists are familiar with these types of artifacts and the dailies or weeklies where we review them. &nbsp;Creating something, showing it, getting notes, and revising : these steps define a technical artist's work cycle.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-6VYoVGFaEcc/ViLN7GYXGBI/AAAAAAAAAdc/3BJtkIVjNv8/s1600/goldenidol.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="272" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-6VYoVGFaEcc/ViLN7GYXGBI/AAAAAAAAAdc/3BJtkIVjNv8/s400/goldenidol.png" width="400" /></a></div><br /><br />What I want to see more of is an artifact for every meeting, not just for director reviews. &nbsp;For example, a meeting should not be a place to setup context or provide new information. &nbsp;That can be delivered by email. &nbsp;That email and resulting thread is a great artifact to bring into a meeting where a decision is needed. A well organized and well paced slideshow is much more engaging than an improvised speech. &nbsp;Production planning should revolve around well designed and maintained spreadsheets or database.<br /><br />There are two keys to a better artifact. <br /><br /><ol><li>An artifact should be well crafted, designed to the needs of the meeting - which means it should take time to make it good. &nbsp;Even an email takes crafting to make it cohesive, clear, and well formatted. &nbsp;I even think it's better to err on overcrafting... to a point. &nbsp;Putting more effort into an artifact than is needed can lead to a different kind of waste.</li><li>Secondly, the easier it is to reproduce the artifact, the better. &nbsp;For example, slideshows are fine artifacts but a recording of that presentation is much better. &nbsp;A presented slideshow can change with each telling, but a recorded presentation plays the same every time and can be distributed to a larger audience. &nbsp;The best part about a recording is that you don't even need a meeting to review it. &nbsp;Furthermore, an edited video is easier to work with since you can use a tool like Premiere to finely craft the experience. A script is a good artifact, but an animatic reel is much better. &nbsp;Two audience members can read a script very differently, but a video fills in a lot of what screenplay leaves to the imagination. &nbsp;At Pixar, the animatic reel was the required foundation for all production planning, not the script.&nbsp;</li></ol><br />There are a few benefits to always requiring an artifact before a meeting. &nbsp;You'll have less wasted meeting time because you'll be spending your time creating artifacts. &nbsp;If there's a reproduceable artifact, especially a playable media of some kind, it's much easier to get people on the same page, get consistent feedback, and make revisions.<br /><br />In the end, any creative team's final product is an artifact of some kind. &nbsp;And the more we spend our time getting good at crafting artifacts at all stages of production, the more we improve on delivering a better final experience to our audience.Maxwell Planckhttps://plus.google.com/103585983141096895655noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6262706974037401731.post-65068385308743242672015-09-08T19:26:00.002-07:002016-11-30T22:53:31.723-08:00The Gender Disparity Problem - A Fishing Story<br /><div class="p1">This past week, I visited my home town of St. Louis, Missouri. &nbsp;Along with getting to be with my parents and sister, &nbsp;I got to meet my first newborn niece who is just 6 weeks old. &nbsp;During most of my stay, we spent the time talking in our pajamas, watching Netflix, and waiting for the baby to get hungry again.&nbsp;</div><div class="p1"><br /></div><div class="p1">As I do on occasion when visiting home, &nbsp;I also went fishing with my Dad. &nbsp;We started our Sunday waking up at 4:30 AM. &nbsp;We said our goodbye to my sister who was awake giving the baby a drowsy, early morning meal. &nbsp;We drove for an hour out to a small bass lake in Wentzville, MO just in time for the sunrise.</div><div class="p1"><br /></div><div class="p1">Once we arrived and set all of the rods, &nbsp;I started casting a top feeder lure, setting the reel, then winding and jigging the lure across the water surface making sure to keep the right amount of tension on the line, feeling for a hit. &nbsp;When a fish didn't catch, I'd do it over again. &nbsp;Again and again for 3 hours... without much action.</div><div class="p1"><br /></div><div class="p1">At first, I wasn't awake enough to think about anything beyond casting and reeling. &nbsp;But when the sky finally started glowing orange, and I was nearing what felt like my hundredth cast, a provocative thought bubbled up - a thought about gender disparity in Silicon Valley. <br /><br />I know it's a strange moment for such a thought, but it's been on my mind as of late (we're in dire need of more females in the VR space). &nbsp;For the past 2 years, whenever I get a pulpit opportunity, I have talked about how a woman's mentality is sorely lacking in the male dominated tech world. &nbsp;I just know from experience that a mixed gender team performs better than a male dominated one. &nbsp;But what is it that's missing about an all male team? &nbsp;What is it about a male way of thinking that needs female balance?</div><div class="p1"><br /></div><div class="p1">One thing I've observed more in men than in women is an obsessiveness when solving a problem - a drive to keep going even when there's probably a good reason to stop or take a break. &nbsp;Playing games late into the night passed a reasonable bed time, banging our head against a difficult problem set instead of changing context, coding past the point of dehydration and an inability to think straight – it's probably this kind of male dominated thinking that has fostered the unhealthy Silicon Valley culture of working late into the night beyond mental exhaustion. &nbsp;Furthermore, this obsession with solving a problem can sometimes make us lose sight of whether we should be solving it in the first place.</div><div class="p1"><br /></div><div class="p1">I've been lucky to work with some great women problem solvers at Pixar (as well as be in a long term relationship with one), and I've found that women are better at considering the bigger picture, often augmenting technical thinking with other intelligences, like social engineering and logistics. &nbsp;They are better at setting priorities and have the discipline to temper when needed and the patience to rethink an approach instead of drilling deep on the first one they tried.</div><div class="p1"><br /></div><div class="p1">And that brings me back to that provocative thought. &nbsp;This all seems to make sense from an evolutionary point of view. &nbsp;The men worth their genetic salt should have been able to hunt or fish over long periods of time with an obsessive drive. &nbsp;Even if the trail ran cold and the fish stopped biting, the men who stuck it out had a stronger chance statistically of bringing home some calories for the tribe. &nbsp;And while the men were away on long hunts, women had to deal with everything else that made a tribe work including nursing the newborns and foraging for reserves in case the men came back meatless. &nbsp;So it makes sense that task prioritization and big picture thinking is their natural strength.</div><div class="p1"><br /></div><div class="p1">Now, I'm not apologetic about my male way of thinking nor do I speak in absolutes. &nbsp;Some great things have come out of an obsessive drive. &nbsp;Men are capable of big picture thinking as much as women can be obsessive. &nbsp;My concern for VR is that without mixing in more women, a room full of men are more naturally wired to have blind spots. We are more prone to obsessing over barren rabbit holes or dead lakes. &nbsp;It's a gender balanced work place that builds a healthy, long lasting, well focused product and team.</div><div class="p1"><br /></div><div class="p1">And it's around that moment of clarity that the bass finally started biting.</div>Maxwell Planckhttps://plus.google.com/103585983141096895655noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6262706974037401731.post-22454019017969001292015-08-01T20:54:00.001-07:002016-11-30T22:50:26.236-08:00Quick and Dirty Code ReviewsBy now, the code review is well understood and respected as the vegetables of healthy programming. And as we know from any meal eaten in haste, the vegetables are often the first thing to be left on the plate. &nbsp;I've seen this kind of neglect a lot in computer animation production where the code only needs to work until the final frames are rendered. &nbsp;It's worth arguing that in these cases where code is tactical and only needs to work for a few clients for a brief time, it isn't worth the extra time for code reviews.<br /><br class="Apple-interchange-newline" />This post is a bit of a confession. &nbsp;I admit I also have neglected my vegetables in the chaos of production. &nbsp;Now that I've started building realtime VR experiences, however, I need to remind myself that my deliverable is no longer a bunch of rendered images, but an executable. &nbsp;It makes me nervous to think that my code may be used many years beyond the launch of a project. &nbsp;Hats off to the programmers of all of the games I've ever played. &nbsp;So now, even tactical code can have huge ramifications to the end product. &nbsp;All stages of checkin need code reviews. <br /><br />But here's the problem. &nbsp;When code needs to be quick and dirty, for prototyping, firefighting, or rushed deadlines, the rigorous code reviews will inevitably start getting left on the plate. &nbsp;And so instead of losing the benefits of code review, introspection, shared knowledge, readability, I think the code reviews also need to be quick and dirty.<br /><br />For me, a big benefit of reviews is having my brain process my code differently when having to explain it verbally to another programmer. &nbsp;A lot of bugs I've found with a collaborator come from me talking through a section of code and then realizing the code doesn't actually do what I am saying. &nbsp;This part of a review is easy and doesn't even need another person (see about the&nbsp;<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rubber_duck_debugging" target="_blank">Rubber Duck</a>). &nbsp;But the reason I would prefer another person is that they can ask questions. &nbsp;Why do it like that? &nbsp;Is there a simpler way? &nbsp;What does this section do? &nbsp;It's in answering these questions or usually because I'm unable to answer these questions that I find code that's more complicated than it needs to be, or code that needs to be rewritten for readability. &nbsp;For core system code that will live longer than a production, I do appreciate feedback on syntax, line spacing, performance and convention, even when it can feel draconian. &nbsp;But when I need to checkin a fix to unblock a lighter or animator, &nbsp;I just want a quick sanity check - something just slightly more interactive than a rubber duck. &nbsp;A reviewing pair should understand where on the scale from zealot to rubber duck the reviewer should be based on the context of the code to be checked in.<br /><br />I don't think the rigor of code reviews needs to be consistent across an entire project as long as you find a way to always have those reviews. There's nothing wrong with adding some butter when you're having a hard time eating your broccoli.Maxwell Planckhttps://plus.google.com/103585983141096895655noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6262706974037401731.post-18939862870292124392015-05-22T00:56:00.001-07:002015-06-07T19:24:45.989-07:00The Arcade Megaplex is coming back with VR<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-utbZO3DJKYQ/VW8ot-RNEtI/AAAAAAAAAas/ZTthPbKHZF0/s1600/VRArcade-May2015.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="147" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-utbZO3DJKYQ/VW8ot-RNEtI/AAAAAAAAAas/ZTthPbKHZF0/s640/VRArcade-May2015.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Image grabbed from <a href="http://pinball.rocket9.net/" target="_blank">Pinball Wizard Arcade</a></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><br />I miss the megaplex Arcades in America. &nbsp;I'm talking arcades with a capital 'A'. &nbsp;They were a childhood institution. &nbsp;Every time I see a small gaming room tucked away in the dark corner of a cineplex or a flashing pinball machine at the back of bar, a moment of intense recall hits me with the smell of ionized air, the cacophony of 8-bit brawling and quarter falls, the taste of metallic adrenaline, and an excited tremor in my fingers. &nbsp;Gone are the days of the dark, neon lit warehouses with rows of gaming machines capped with money exchanges. &nbsp;Gone are the days when the best place to have a 10 year old birthday party was at places like&nbsp;<b><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tilt_(arcade)" target="_blank">Tilt</a>&nbsp;</b>at&nbsp;the Northwest Plaza or <b><a href="http://arcadepreservation.wikia.com/wiki/Exhilarama_%28Crestwood_Plaza%29" target="_blank">Exhilirama</a>!</b>&nbsp;at the Crestwood Mall.<br /><br />When the home consoles started having competitive graphics and a killer local multiplayer, going over to a friend's house to play <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GoldenEye_007_%281997_video_game%29" target="_blank">GoldenEye</a>&nbsp;or <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super_Smash_Bros." target="_blank">Smash Bros.</a> became the new thing to do on a Saturday.<br /><br />Our generation hasn't forgotten as seen by the success of adult gaming bars like <a href="http://www.daveandbusters.com/default.aspx" target="_blank">Dave &amp; Busters</a>. &nbsp;But I do wish that today's kids had a place more magical than the living room to make new friends adventuring together in mind blowing experiences.<br /><br />The Arcade was where entertainment based virtual reality attempted its disastrous debut with experiences like <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v6t69mp0ZhE" target="_blank">Dactyl Nightmare</a>. &nbsp;But with better display tech and affordable tracking solutions being at the level of maturity that Oculus has demonstrated, VR Arcades feels like an inevitability.<br /><br />Arcades got big around the same time the Atari console was released in the late 70s. &nbsp;The home console was a great appetizer but it was only at the Arcade where you could get access to the best experiences: experiences that felt many generations away from being in our home consoles. &nbsp;The experience gap remained wide for so long, that the 6 foot tall game cabinets felt like they housed a completely different medium. &nbsp;When that gap shrank, it just didn't make sense to leave your home when you could play <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Street_Fighter" target="_blank">Street Fighter</a> on your TV.<br /><br />Just like when the Atari home console came out, when VR becomes available to the market, it will drive us to want more. &nbsp;And just like the Atari was heavily limited in the experience it could deliver at the price point it offered, consumer grade VR is still very limited in terms of resolution, performance, and the fact that you need to be tethered to a powerful machine.<br /><br />When places like the <a href="http://www.roadtovr.com/first-hands-on-the-void-a-mixed-reality-experience-that-blends-real-and-virtual/" target="_blank">VOID</a>&nbsp;become a reality, these places will be able to deliver the kind of presence that is unrestricted by consumer constraints. &nbsp;The head mounted displays and tracking solutions at these VR Arcades will be much more expensive and therefore be miles ahead of what you can afford at home. Instead of a warehouse of cabinets, these arcades will be a large space of corridors, rooms, stairs and platforms. You'll be able to move around untethered with a group of your friends all sharing a world and story projected over those physical walls and obstacles. &nbsp;When you touch the wall of a 20s style mansion in a murder mystery or the alien ship corridor of a sci-fi space operetta, it will touch back. &nbsp;These places will not just be for teenage boys; they will most likely have the audience diversity of cinemas. &nbsp;They will be so much closer to the dream of the Holodeck, and so novel compared to what we have at home, our drive to want more will lead us here. <br /><br />In the long run, VR Arcades will inspire the technology that we can bring home, just like the Arcades of the 80s and 90s inspired the&nbsp;<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super_Nintendo_Entertainment_System" target="_blank">Super Nintendo</a>, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sega_Genesis" target="_blank">Sega Genesis</a> and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atari_Jaguar" target="_blank">Atari Jaguar</a>. &nbsp;But I wonder if there will be a time when the home experience will close the presence gap to the point where VR Arcades will become obsolete. &nbsp;The big difference from what came before is that great presence requires a large physical space onto which virtual worlds can be projected. &nbsp;So perhaps the killer app will be some form of augmented reality that overlays a virtual world over your neighborhood backyards. &nbsp;Or maybe we'll need to wait for tech like the Matrix that will bypass our tactile sensory systems and allow us to explore and touch a virtual world from the comfort of a couch.<br /><br />In any case, I know the presence gap will take a long time to close and I look forward to spending some of my upcoming Saturday's returning to the Arcade and having my mind blown.Maxwell Planckhttps://plus.google.com/103585983141096895655noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6262706974037401731.post-24725964212970419322015-04-19T19:42:00.002-07:002015-11-22T19:35:59.865-08:00To Generalize or Specialize? and How VR Changes Things<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-XNrYUKWavxY/VUaVcO66VEI/AAAAAAAAAZw/Vq4Tqv4pBis/s1600/apr2015-pipeline.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" border="0" height="155" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-XNrYUKWavxY/VUaVcO66VEI/AAAAAAAAAZw/Vq4Tqv4pBis/s1600/apr2015-pipeline.png" title="" width="640" /></a></div><br />Putting together a high quality computer animated story requires skill sets in illustration, modeling, rigging, animating, shading, lighting, effects, and programming. &nbsp;It's rare to find a great talent that can do all of these skills as a 10,000 hour expert. &nbsp;It's near impossible to put together a full team of such experts. &nbsp;I've found in my 10 years of being a technical director and artist at Pixar that you need a proper mix of generalists and specialists to make the right team. <br /><br />There is no easy answer to what a good mix should be, and the right mix changes as an industry evolves and projects develop. &nbsp;During early days of computer animation, the industry was under developed and so most technical directors were generalists out of necessity. &nbsp;When I joined Pixar in 2004, the industry had hit a stride and specialists were more needed to mix in with the established generalists. &nbsp;The specialists raised the bar. &nbsp;Over the years, I was fortunate to see the industry mature, and the bar raised project after project. &nbsp;Understandably, we found ourselves recruiting more specialists than generalists.<br /><br />A dilemma that faces technical directors and artists from the start of their career is knowing when they should specialize or generalize. &nbsp;Students looking to find jobs in well established VFX houses or one of the big feature film studios need to stand out. &nbsp;I recommend specializing if you want to get into a place like Pixar. <br /><br />Now in a young industry like virtual reality, my first instinct is to recommend generalizing. &nbsp;The content making process and the creative language is so loosely defined that flexibility is valuable in the chaos. &nbsp;But VR is also an industry that more easily stands on the existing expertise coming from VFX, game making, and computer animation. &nbsp;We are already positioned to benefit from the specialization of what's come before.<br /><br />At Pixar, we talked about team members that had a primary focus and secondary focuses. &nbsp;The more desirable members could flex into other roles when their primary focus was under fed. &nbsp;And having understanding of disciplines upstream and downstream of your specialization makes you a better citizen of the pipeline.<br /><br />Note how I phrased the dilemma -&nbsp;<b>when&nbsp;</b>to specialize or to generalize (not&nbsp;<b>if</b>)<b>.</b>&nbsp; Although specializing does require focus over a long period of time, &nbsp;I don't think specialists need to feel pigeon held for their entire career. &nbsp;I find that most specialist technical artists want the opportunity to work in other areas of the pipeline, and so willingness is not the problem. &nbsp;The opportunity is just not easily available when the team is of a certain size and expectations are well established. &nbsp;Helping develop the birthing industry of virtual reality could be the moment you were looking for.<br /><br /><div>We're still slowly growing the team at our studio. &nbsp;We're also uncertain what the right mix should be, but virtual reality helps us here. &nbsp;If we were building a traditional computer animation studio, we'd need to grow to a 100+ team if we wanted to&nbsp;make high quality content that competes in the film market. &nbsp;Such a large team would require more well defined responsibility boundaries. &nbsp;Those of us in traditional computer animation based story telling had been envious of the creative freedom and nimbleness of indie game developers. &nbsp;There just isn't a market for selling computer animation short films like there is a market for selling great and small scoped indie games. <br /><br />One of the exciting things about virtual reality story telling is that the novelty is so powerful, small teams can make high quality, small scope experiences (5 to 10 minutes) and people will buy them. &nbsp;So we can keep VR story telling teams small and those that may have specialized in their previous jobs will have many more opportunities to learn new skills.</div>Maxwell Planckhttps://plus.google.com/103585983141096895655noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6262706974037401731.post-29559581147206781282015-03-16T23:30:00.002-07:002015-03-17T10:24:49.356-07:00My 2nd GDC - Still has that New Conference Smell <span style="font-family: inherit;">It was a year ago this month that I attended <a href="http://blog.maxwellplanck.com/2014/04/i-attended-my-first-gdc-this-past-march.html" target="_blank">my first GDC</a>, and it was at that time that I saw what would eventually become the Oculus DK2. &nbsp;When I saw positionally tracked VR, &nbsp;I knew that my new fun hobby was going to turn into much more. &nbsp;It's been a ride of a year since.</span><br /><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: inherit;">So understand I'm biased towards GDC. &nbsp;But I have to admit that on a second tasting, it was still just as inspiring and pioneering.</span><br /><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: inherit;">While strolling from talk to talk, browsing the indie mega booth, I realized something special about game making, especially in the indie space. &nbsp;More game designers feel ownership over what they make compared to their VFX counterparts. &nbsp;In the VFX and computer animated industry, an army of TDs and animators may have individually worked on a handful of shots in a big blockbuster film, but the film is owned by only a few at the top. &nbsp; It's much harder if not almost impossible to make a living on small team film projects. &nbsp;But the indie gamer market is more forgiving of well designed, small team made games.</span><br /><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: inherit;">I was also surprised to note how many women were at the conference. &nbsp;As much as I complained about the long men's room lines during my last year blog, &nbsp;I was pleasantly surprised to see more women in the writing, designing, and technical talks I attended. &nbsp;I'm a big fan of more women in technical efforts and was glad to hear my fanaticism reaffirmed with actual scientific studies at Jesse Schell's talk.</span><br /><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: inherit;">This year's highlights:</span><br /><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span><br /><h2><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">1. VR is officially an epidemic</span></h2><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: inherit;">As much as I talked about VR being the hot topic of last year's GDC, this year VR has reached the next phase of infection, being a presence&nbsp;</span><span style="font-family: inherit;">at almost every major booth at the exhibit. &nbsp;Every game engine company, every big game house, and every VR hardware maker had either an Oculus Crescent Bay prototype or another up and coming hardware in their demo areas. &nbsp;As a content maker, I can't be more excited. &nbsp;</span><br /><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: inherit;">Also, any chance to here John Carmack talk is always worth the price of admission.</span><br /><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span><br /><div align="center"><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/CqdexZJFHQE" width="560"></iframe></div><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span><br /><h2><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">2. Storytelling in Games</span></h2><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: inherit;">On Monday/Tuesday, I attended a lot of talks at the Narrative Writing for Games track. &nbsp;I was encouraged to see how game writers think of the past few years as a renaissance in their art. Finally, the empathy felt by the player is becoming the most important part of game design.</span><br /><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: inherit;">I especially liked a point made by Stephen Hood, CEO of Storium, during his talk <a href="http://schedule.gdconf.com/session/computers-are-terrible-storytellers-lets-give-the-humans-a-shot" target="_blank">Computers are Terrible Storytellers - Lets Give the Humans a Shot</a>. &nbsp; He made reference to a director commentary of the 1998 film <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120789/" target="_blank">Pleasantville</a>, in which the makers said they didn't want to shoot the movie like a 1950s sitcom (with 3 fixed camera setup), but film the movie like you were cinematically composing the world of a 1950s sitcoms. &nbsp;Likewise, as a VR content maker, we shouldn't think of shooting our stories like through a camera, but think about how to create presence in a cinematic world.</span><br /><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: inherit;">The other talking point that kept coming up is the concept of "white space." Each speaker mentioned that a good story told leaves the right parts out and lets the audience fill in the blanks. &nbsp;This is consistent with what we've found, that rushing a story in VR doesn't give the viewer time to discover the world for themselves.</span><br /><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span><br /><div align="center"><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/4dceBTg2S5k?list=PLKh2D9m07SCYzB5YFUvOT6k2uOTPywEBo" width="560"></iframe> <br /><br /></div><h2><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">3. Unity 5 Sequencer looks very promising</span></h2><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: inherit;">In the <a href="http://schedule.gdconf.com/session/production-with-unity-5-shading-lighting-extensibility-of-gfx-features-and-storytelling-tools-presented-by-unity-technologies" target="_blank">Production with Unity 5</a>&nbsp;talk, &nbsp;I got to see a glimpse of the sequencer tool being developed on the Unity R&amp;D team and used to make their GDC sizzle video "The Blacksmith." &nbsp;My favorite description from the developer is that you can think of Unity's sequencer as a way to design a generic event graph that can change over time. &nbsp;This holistic approach to authoring timeline based action is much more flexible than what we've experienced with UE4's matinee. &nbsp;Matinee is a powerful tool, but there are times when we're reminded that it is a limited tool mostly designed to make cut scenes in Gears of War.</span><br /><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span><br /><div align="center"><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/pXWAsayTFTo" width="560"></iframe></div><br /><h2><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">4. Telltale Games doesn't care if you don't call their work "games"</span></h2><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: inherit;">At the Tuesday talk <a href="http://schedule.gdconf.com/session/when-story-is-the-gameplay-multi-genre-writing-for-telltale-games" target="_blank">When Story is the Gameplay: Multi-Genre Writing for Telltale Games</a>, I smiled to hear Kevin Bruner say that he doesn't care if their work is called games or not. &nbsp;I especially loved a moment when one of the panelists talked about how most games use cut scenes and story moments as the carrot. &nbsp;In telltale games, the entire experience is the carrot and the interactivity is just another device to create empathy. &nbsp;Cool.</span><br /><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span> <br /><div align="center"><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/boY5jktW2Zk" width="560"></iframe></div><br /><h2><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">5. Valve VR Advanced Rendering talk was smart and open</span></h2><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: inherit;">The <a href="http://schedule.gdconf.com/session/advanced-vr-rendering" target="_blank">VR Advanced Rendering</a> talk given by Alex Vlachos was very smart, and surprisingly very open. &nbsp;Alex shared a lot of insights and facts about Valve's headset and rendering engine that could have been kept as competitive secret. &nbsp;Instead, Alex shared a lot of the software solutions that will help elevate all engines supporting VR. &nbsp;Here are my highlights:</span><br /><ul><li><span style="font-family: inherit;">HTC Vive uses a 90 Hz, global shutter display with a&nbsp;2160x1200 framebuffer and FOV of 110.</span></li><li><span style="font-family: inherit;">Alex liked to think of the VR display measurements as Shaded Visible Pixels per Second, a great way to capture resolution, refresh rate, and overdraw requirements in one number. &nbsp;As a baseline, our&nbsp;</span>1080p TVs rendering @ 60 Hz push about 124 million pixels/sec.</li><li><span style="font-family: inherit;">With HTC Vive's specs, the SVP/second is 1512x1680x2 @ 90 Hz: 457 million pixels/sec - (later reduced to 378 million pixels/sec by using a smart stencil mask).</span></li><li><span style="font-family: inherit;">Valve's Source engine implements a "running start" which adds about 2 ms of latency to the sensor to display timing, but takes better advantage of idle time on the GPU that is waiting for the vsync event.</span></li><li><span style="font-family: inherit;">8xMSAA with a forward renderer seems like the golden standard for anti-aliasing in VR, a fact we've realized as well after having worked with temporal AA with UE4's deferred renderer. &nbsp;Forward rendering is especially appealing with features like OpenGL 4+'s&nbsp;</span>glMinSampleShading<span style="font-family: inherit;">&nbsp;which allows us to&nbsp;modify shading rate on a per object basis.</span></li><li><span style="font-family: inherit;">Normal maps still work well at a distance in VR, but the most notable problem is how lower mip levels of a high frequency signal can lose interesting specular properties. &nbsp;They fixed this at Valve by implementing a process where the mip-level creation of normal maps and roughness maps happen at the same time, allowing for the detail lost in normal map filtering to increase the roughness value.</span></li><li><span style="font-family: inherit;">The Valve Source engine uses a stencil mask that cuts out pixels that are heavily distorted on the outside of the eye buffers, saving about 17% of the pixel shading costs. &nbsp;This may cause issues with technology like timewarp.</span></li><li><span style="font-family: inherit;">The Source engine has a highly optimized distortion mesh that only exists for non-black pixels, saving about 15% of the final distortion cost.</span></li></ul><div align="center"><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/ZKK74Wh-J10" width="560"></iframe><br /><br /><br /></div><h2><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">6. Jesse Schell punched me in the gut... figuratively</span></h2><div><span style="font-family: inherit;">One of the final talks I attended was Jesse Schell's <a href="http://schedule.gdconf.com/session/game-studio-management-making-it-great" target="_blank">Game Studio Management: Making it Great</a>. &nbsp;For as dry as the subject sounded, &nbsp;I found myself riveted, taking more notes for his talk than for all of my other notes combined. &nbsp;Everything he said came off as charismatic, thoughtful and genuine. &nbsp;And some things he said made me want to punch myself for how obviously stupid we've managed the beginnings of Story STudio. &nbsp;Here's a quick distillation of the things he said and what struck me.</span><br /><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div><h3><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">I. Communication as a ritual</span></h3><div><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: inherit;">As a small studio, we're continuously trying to work on process that is routine, provides clear over communication, and doesn't consume the team's time with meetings. &nbsp;A few parts seem to be working but the hardest part in a fast moving creative environment is communication. &nbsp;The common approach to manage communication is to schedule more meetings, send more emails - and it's a trap we have been fighting. &nbsp;But Jesse suggested that good communication is not about meetings but designing a culture where communication happens without management. &nbsp;</span><br /><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: inherit;">Jesse contended that most communication comes in subtle, difficult to measure ways born out of clustering teams working on common projects (when sometimes closing a 15 foot gap between desks can make all the difference) or giving space for unmanaged creative outlets in the forms of game jams. &nbsp;I especially loved his anecdote about how his office would come together in the kitchen when the only team member who knew how to use the crappy brewing pot would make a batch. &nbsp;When he wanted to encourage this "coffee time", he bought a nicer Keurig that had the adverse effect: it ruined the ritual. &nbsp;It also reminded me of how much I loved the design of the Steve Jobes Building on main campus Pixar. &nbsp;All meeting rooms, bathrooms, and food are located at the center, forcing cross&nbsp;</span>pollinating<span style="font-family: inherit;">&nbsp;traffic.</span><br /><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: inherit;">We've had a few rituals in our office that have faded away as the team got bigger - like board game lunches. &nbsp;This idea that ritual helps in so many unquantifiable ways kicked my butt to make our team's ritual more of a priority.</span></div><br /><h3><span style="font-size: large;">II. Information cataloguing</span></h3><br /><div>Jesse had another great insight when he started thinking about managing information flow at his game company. &nbsp;He started by listing every type of information that flows in his office, especially the info about how the team feels about themselves and each other. &nbsp;He then categorized these many types of communication as fact, opinion, and/or emotion. &nbsp;It was thought provoking to split emotion and opinion because if you think about it, an emotion is more fact than opinion. &nbsp;If a team member is pissed or frustrated, that's a fact.</div><div><br />I find myself falling into the trap of thinking that a team member's emotion is a by-product, a hurdle or problem to be solved. &nbsp;Recognizing that emotions are as important as the facts and opinions of your business helps you address them as the priority they should be.</div><br /><h3><span style="font-size: large;">III. Culture fit and the lovable fool</span></h3><div><br />His final brilliant and striking point was that most successful businesses prosper by selecting the lovable fool over the competent jerk. &nbsp;Even if some one is struggling, a team will rally around some one who is lovable more than they're willing to work with some one who they'd rather avoid. <br /><br />I've been very proud of the team we've put together so far. We've been lucky to have not only amazing talent but really likable people. &nbsp;We used "culture fit" when describing candidates during our recruiting process and I now realize that this is a bloated phrase. &nbsp; In the end, the most important aspect of a good team is that everyone likes each other. &nbsp;So instead of asking is some one a "culture fit", we should just ask ourselves if we like them. &nbsp;Therefore it's important that the entire team plays some role in making sure that if we add a new team member, people will enjoy hanging out with them. <br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><i>not about management, but a taste of Jesse's style:</i></div><div align="center"><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/DLwskDkDPUE?list=PLD6E447FCFB8F8423" width="560"></iframe><br /></div><br /><br />The modern games industry is only 25 years old. &nbsp;Film is well over 100 years. &nbsp;There's something about a young industry that avoids the trappings of precedent. &nbsp;I have more faith in the games industry making progressive changes in gender equality and best practices.<br /><br />Imagine working in a new born industry like VR. &nbsp;I'm excited to see how we evolve.</div>Maxwell Planckhttps://plus.google.com/103585983141096895655noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6262706974037401731.post-75173256717906536252015-02-15T20:33:00.001-08:002015-02-15T20:34:00.383-08:00Hobby Quest: ShaderToy - Buckey BallsFor some reason I've had Buckey Balls on the brain when thinking of my next shader for shadertoy. I started playing with making the atomic bonds look like transparent, pulsating orbs. <br><br><div align="center"><iframe width="640" height="360" frameborder="0" src="https://www.shadertoy.com/embed/MtlGzX?gui=true&t=10&paused=true" allowfullscreen></iframe></div><br>And then I got tired of the blue theme and switched over to a warmer tone. Also, I thought it would be fun to reuse some of my plausible shading work from an earlier toy. After playing with a shader params and lighting, I got a very bubble gum like feel. <br><br><div align="center"><iframe width="640" height="360" frameborder="0" src="https://www.shadertoy.com/embed/lslSRf?gui=true&t=10&paused=true" allowfullscreen></iframe></div>Maxwell Planckhttps://plus.google.com/103585983141096895655noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6262706974037401731.post-51332175751301223022015-02-07T18:54:00.001-08:002015-02-08T22:00:34.263-08:00Immersive CinemaI've been blown away by the excitement we've stirred up with <a href="http://www.oculus.com/storystudio" target="_blank">our studio's announcement</a>. &nbsp; The response we've gotten on our first steps into "immersive cinema" hints that what we're doing could have the impact we believe it could.<br /><br />When we were discussing how to talk about ourselves, we thought the best way to convey our work was "immersive cinema". &nbsp;It's a good term for where we're at. &nbsp;We're so young as creators and as an audience that we don't have a good common language for describing what we're making, and so we do the same thing we do when we're creating, we steal from what we know.<br /><br />Our audience understands movies and how cinema is a medium for rich, directed, passive story telling. &nbsp;What we make is different enough compared to heavily interactive games that it would be misleading to say we're making story driven games. &nbsp;So it makes sense that instead of coming up with something obfuscating like "realtime rendered, director curated story telling with reactive elements for tailored immersive experience", we just say "immersive cinema".<br /><br />But here's the problem in the long run: &nbsp;using the term "cinema" implies that what we're doing is the next step in the art of movie making. &nbsp;We as VR makers have come to appreciate that placing our audience in an immersive environment and then telling them a compelling story is going to require so much invention that calling what we do a movie or a game misses the mark.<br /><br />Those of us who have started in this new medium may have come from those known industries, but I look forward to the day when we find our own word for what a VR experience is.Maxwell Planckhttps://plus.google.com/103585983141096895655noreply@blogger.com